Amazon 'Censors' Gay and Lesbian Book Sales Ranks

Huge book distributor Amazon has decided that homosexuality is something the world needs to be saved from. Nearly the whole top one hundred gay and lesbian list has had their ranking removed. Losing a rank severely hurts any books sales and hinders an author's livelihood. Many writers who have had their rank removed have posted about this, including Nicola Griffith, Maya Banks, and Stephanie Tyler.

The books that had their ranks removed were not just sexually explicit books or gay porn. They include Brokeback Mountain (later adapted into a movie movie that won several awards)as well as the biography of Harvey Milk (who you may know a bit about from the recent Oscar-winning movie Milk) and John Barrowman (star of the BBC series, Torchwood). What doesn't make sense is tantalizing titles such as Pornstar Pets and XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits have been left alone despite obvious "adult" themes. Another suspicious notice is that the book A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality has not lost its rank.

When contacting Amazon for answers, the story gets confusing. You would figure even during a holiday weekend, Amazon would be able to supply some answer since it is a world wide company. Yet there isn't just one single answer! Instead, we have one version where Amazon representative, Ashlyn D, sent a reply stating, "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

Yet today, another Amazon spokesman issued a press release to Publisher's Weekly where they claimed it was "glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed." And that there was, "no new adult policy."

Really, which is it?

Outrage to Amazon is quite massive. There is a twitter group, #Amazonfail that is keeping up to date on the information as it is gathered and is sited by most as the place to follow the story. Also organized email writings were organized. The best was the old fashioned Google bombing.

Google bombing is where to attack a group you ensure through constant links throughout the Internet, that a chosen phrase comes up associated with a group. For this Google bomb, the term is Amazon Rank. Googling that phrase will lead you to a website that has a definition for the term. It starts off with, 1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies). There is much more, including how to "properly" use Amazon Rank in sentences, but I don't want to ruin the whole thing, feel free to Google it yourself.

Hopefully this all was a glitch and it wasn't a form of censorship that was attempted to be hidden away. Regardless, thanks to quick communication of the Internet it was discovered one way or another, and will be fixed.

Sources:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6651080.html

http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html

http://twitter.com

http://amazon.com