Cheney and Lesbians!?: Tag Teaming Amazon in Response to Sales Ranking Censorship

A vast number LGBT and feminist titles lost their sale rankings over the weekend, something that has been going on sub rosa since February. At least two authors have been informed by customer service that it is because the subject matter is adult. An Amazon spokesperson says it's a "glitch." The outrage has prompted cancellations of orders and an outcry fueled by Twitter #amazonfail, along with a creative response:

The first book that pops up on Amazon when searching the word "homosexuality" is A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. Unlike Heather Has Two Mommies, this book has a sales ranking. (As of this morning at 11 am west coast time, Heather has been reinstated on the ranking list along wiht dozens of other titles).

And because of the sales ranking scandal, this book's increased visibility also has created a whole new collection of tags, 123 total, that express users' views of the title, some of which--like abortion, porn, bdsm and "big homo propaganda," which this book most definitely is not--seem to be designed to get the book flagged and removed from the sales ranking system.

A number of of these user-generated tags are quite poetic and express Amazon users' outrage over both the book's premise and the this weekend's "glitch" that resulted in loss of sales rankings for LGBT and feminist titles. I especially like "a load of dingos kidneys," "unbridled buffoonery in the realm of hate" and the ever popular "cheney and lesbians."

You can see the list of tags here.

Lisa Derrick is La Figa at Firedoglake.com

Comments

[cocopuffed]

dear lisa...
you refer to cheney in the headline for this article on huffpo. now, i hate the bu$hco as much as anyone and truly believe cheney should be in jail for what he pulled. but then you (or huffpo) give the wingnuts ammo to say that the liberal press is stoking the fire. was your article truncated or what?

[mredder4]

Didn't something similar happen with Amazon and books related to abortion? It seems like it's time for people to start addressing the discriminatory decisions of the executives of Amazon, who would ultimately and undeniably be involved in the decisions that cause these results.

[sasidechick]

Don't shop with them anymore. It's very simple.

[chaya]

Yet if you type "gay" into a search you are inundated with outright gay porn. I'm gay, but I don't want to see all that porn when I'm just looking for books.

[GayIthacan]

chaya:

There is a difference between GOOGLing 'gay' and using the search engine ON AMAZON.COM for your search, you idiot.

And one can, ifone is intelligent enough, GOOGLE 'gay NOT porn" as well.

Christ - learn to use the Internet!!!