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beating the rush (to judgment)
May. 29th, 2009 01:39 pmI have a feeling this is going to be all over the internet within hours: a gay author of LGBT-themed books was unable to include the word "gay" in his author profile at Amazon.com. It was flagged as "potentially inappropriate" and he wasn't able to post the profile until he removed it. Click here for his account of the incident.
People are, not surprisingly, outraged.
However, I would bet money, if I had any, that what amazon.com was trying to flag was the use of "gay" as a pejorative (as in "that's so gay"). But whoever did the programming fucked up, which isn't surprising at all because it's damn hard to screen for a word that can be used both positively and pejoratively. Not coincidentally, author profiles are a new feature and thus exactly where horrible glitches are most likely to occur.
I believe this is an accident for one simple reason: Amazon.com isn't affiliated with the Christian right in any way that I know about. (If someone has evidence to the contrary, please link.) Nor have I heard of any pressure campaign by the Christian right against Amazon.com trying to get them to remove LGBT content. Amazon.com has no reason to alienate LGBT customers.
This fuck-up, like the previous delisting of LGBT books, is more easily explained by stupidity than by malice. A probably well-intentioned fuck-up makes more sense than a conspiracy (by a major international corporation serving a customer base that, I imagine, includes more LGBT people than Christian fundamentalists) to secretly make gay books and authors invisible. Especially in the absence of external pressure to do so.
Unless I see convincing evidence to the contrary, I'll continue to think that Amazon.com needs better website maintenance and oversight rather than that it's anti-gay. Especially since Amazon.com is considered a highly progressive company on LGBT employment issues.
*****
People are, not surprisingly, outraged.
However, I would bet money, if I had any, that what amazon.com was trying to flag was the use of "gay" as a pejorative (as in "that's so gay"). But whoever did the programming fucked up, which isn't surprising at all because it's damn hard to screen for a word that can be used both positively and pejoratively. Not coincidentally, author profiles are a new feature and thus exactly where horrible glitches are most likely to occur.
I believe this is an accident for one simple reason: Amazon.com isn't affiliated with the Christian right in any way that I know about. (If someone has evidence to the contrary, please link.) Nor have I heard of any pressure campaign by the Christian right against Amazon.com trying to get them to remove LGBT content. Amazon.com has no reason to alienate LGBT customers.
This fuck-up, like the previous delisting of LGBT books, is more easily explained by stupidity than by malice. A probably well-intentioned fuck-up makes more sense than a conspiracy (by a major international corporation serving a customer base that, I imagine, includes more LGBT people than Christian fundamentalists) to secretly make gay books and authors invisible. Especially in the absence of external pressure to do so.
Unless I see convincing evidence to the contrary, I'll continue to think that Amazon.com needs better website maintenance and oversight rather than that it's anti-gay. Especially since Amazon.com is considered a highly progressive company on LGBT employment issues.
*****
