Via a friend's locked post:
http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html
This person, who worked for Six Apart during the Strikethrough crisis of a year or so ago, has presented a reasonable alternate explanation for the removal of LGBT books from the sales rankings.
Hir theory is that a large group of conservatives have been manipulating the Amazon process for flagging "objectionable" content, rather than Amazon putting into a place a policy that deliberately removes these books from the rankings. If this is true, it's not Amazon that is the homophobic villain.
That said: whatever the reason for the books to have been removed from the rankings, they need to be reinstated. If it's due to a homophobic policy by Amazon, the policy needs to be changed. If it's due to a crusade by an anti-LGBT group then Amazon needs to find a way to prevent its policies from being exploited.
http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html
This person, who worked for Six Apart during the Strikethrough crisis of a year or so ago, has presented a reasonable alternate explanation for the removal of LGBT books from the sales rankings.
Hir theory is that a large group of conservatives have been manipulating the Amazon process for flagging "objectionable" content, rather than Amazon putting into a place a policy that deliberately removes these books from the rankings. If this is true, it's not Amazon that is the homophobic villain.
That said: whatever the reason for the books to have been removed from the rankings, they need to be reinstated. If it's due to a homophobic policy by Amazon, the policy needs to be changed. If it's due to a crusade by an anti-LGBT group then Amazon needs to find a way to prevent its policies from being exploited.
Comments
My inquiry was met with a rather quick reply that basically amounted to, "we've got it covered, and communication will come from official channels."
I'll keep my ear to the ground, but I doubt that this low-level functionary will be able to pull too much more information on this one. =\ Sorry.
It will be interesting to see what develops. Even if this was troll work and not an official Amazon policy I hope that there is corrective action in the near future.
I'll let you know if I hear anything else. :)