If you're anywhere close to the publishing industry or are a regular Amazon customer or just generally like books, you may have heard the hoopla this week regarding Amazon stripping sales rankings from anything remotely homosexual.
Well. I was slow to jump on the bandwagon when I saw the "calls to action" to sign a petition and be mortally furious with Amazon, in part because the evidence given just didn't make sense or add up. It rather looked like some people patched together a few comments from Amazon spokespeople, but still didn't manage to make the case. These folks insisted Amazon had taken sales rankings from anything gay (including a children's book about a little girl with two moms) but left rankings on hetero porn and erotica (e.g. Playboy books, which appear to be the ultimate nemesis of all GLBT writers). The hoopla crowd also claimed these books wouldn't come up in searches anymore, or if they did, they placed way down the search list.
Low and behold, after two days of viral forwarding and shouts of "censorship!!", Amazon steps forward to announce they'd had a technical problem which had dumped thousands of items, not just GLBT material. The roar has settled to a few mumblers who insinuate Amazon is "covering its tracks" due to the uproar. Uh-huh.
Newsflash: If a company decides to take a particular "moral" stance, it's not going to simply change its mind and lie about it days later. If the issue is important enough for a behemoth company like Amazon to stand up for, then said company will surely expect and deal with complaints.
Geez. You know, I'm pretty rile-able, when I find something that seems like it needs some backing. What I don't get is people who are so wishy-washy that they'll let themselves be riled at the drop of a hat, just because somebody tells them they should be.
Signing off and heading to middle school again (where someone is always riled!),
Autumn
Got romance?
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