oh amazon, for heaven's sake

You know, in this day and age, the idea that an enormous online retailer of books would strip the sales rankings from books with LGBT content, thereby rendering them difficult to impossible to find through search function, then defend the move by stating that they are doing the same to all books containing “adult” content even as the sales rankings remain on many works of straight pornography, thereby creating a virtual bizarro world in which Playboy is a wholesome read and theoretical works by Michel Foucault are for filthy smutbags, and would do so without anticipating the massive shitstorm that such a boneheaded move would generate, seems outlandish at best.

It happened, though, and since the aforementioned shitstorm began, Amazon is apparently scrambling to fix it and blame it on a “glitch.” But what the hell? How does a “glitch” produce that specific brand of censorship?

(Maybe this way.)

Again, sales rankings are a big deal because without them, you can’t find books on Amazon. For better or for worse, a lot of us use Amazon more or less the way we used to use the card catalog—to search for books related to our interests. So for instance, if this ranking censorship were to stick—which it won’t, especially if we shame Amazon good and well for doing it in the first place—I could look forward to a good many of the books I would need for my LGBT-related graduate research not appearing in an Amazon search, due to their apparently being porn. Not that the inconveniencing of my research would, by any means, be among the most damaging consequences of such an idiotic move on Amazon’s part. From a writer’s perspective, being de-ranked by Amazon amounts to a significant hit in visibility for his or her book, because Amazon is so dominant. And it might be a book that somebody really needs to read.

The linking of all LGBT-related anything with “adult” content…well, I don’t need to tell anyone who reads this blog how offensive that is. I could rail about the injustice of American Psycho being A-Okay while the children’s book Heather Has Two Mommies is “adult”….but you get it. And probably a lot of people at Amazon get it too. I have a hard time believing that this is some nefarious new underhanded company policy, especially given how they’re scrambling to fix it. But I agree with Neil Gaiman that an apology and a fuller explanation would be nice.

I’m sure Amazon is hoping the whole thing will blow over so they can pretend it never happened. It seems important, though, to set a precedent of consumer disgust, so that they—and any other online book retailers who are getting ideas—don’t go away with the impression that this kind of screw-up isn’t a freaking big deal. To quote the blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, “fuckwittery should not go unrewarded.”

The aforementioned blog suggests we all Google Bomb Amazon by creating this link: Amazon Rank. Use the words “Amazon Rank” in your link and link to http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank. What you will find there is a newly-created verb for the modern lexicon. If you Google “Amazon Rank,” it’s the first hit that comes up, thanks to a bunch of pissed-off bloggers putting the link on their pages. If you are feeling bad for the people at Amazon who are eating shit for a mistake that may have been not so much evil as just profoundly ill-conceived, you may think this is overkill. But it made me laugh, and I’m not particularly nice sometimes. Hence my link.

Here’s an update from the same blog that discusses why it may have happened. Many other good links are included. This may be the one and only time that I link here to a romance novel-themed blog.

Best quote of the day on the subject, again from this post by Patrick Neilsen Hayden:

A great deal of racism, homophobia, etc., happens not because anyone particularly wants to be racist or homophobic, but because the ground has been tilted that way by arrangements made long ago and if you’re not constantly on the lookout it’s easiest to roll downhill.

ETA: Excellent coverage on Jezebel.