Earlier today was the first I'd heard of it (on a Torchwood message board off lj), but it was immediately obvious that they were engaging in a subversive form of censorship.
The "rankings" give sales information to anyone who cares to look, for starters, but it's also used to form "ranking lists" - basically the top 10, or top 100, in any given category. It looks like alex_beecroft was breaking into "visible on the list" territory when her "ranking" was yanked, effectively reducing her visibility to Amazon customers (lowering GLBT visibility AND alex_beecroft's possibility for sales).
I gather that having an "adult" tag (besides resulting in the loss of a ranking) restricts what searches will include the book in question. Once again, lowering GLBT visibility AND alex_beecroft's possibility for sales.
So, amazon is deliberately removing GLBT from people's consideration while leaving het material (often of a more genuinely "adult" nature) out to be seen. That's a subversive, but still blatant, form of censorship.
Though I've heard, through an lj Torchwood site, that they may already be trying to back away from this mess they've created. I'm off to add my email to the fray. >:-)
Keep those flames, petitions and cat macros coming!
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The "rankings" give sales information to anyone who cares to look, for starters, but it's also used to form "ranking lists" - basically the top 10, or top 100, in any given category. It looks like alex_beecroft was breaking into "visible on the list" territory when her "ranking" was yanked, effectively reducing her visibility to Amazon customers (lowering GLBT visibility AND alex_beecroft's possibility for sales).
I gather that having an "adult" tag (besides resulting in the loss of a ranking) restricts what searches will include the book in question. Once again, lowering GLBT visibility AND alex_beecroft's possibility for sales.
So, amazon is deliberately removing GLBT from people's consideration while leaving het material (often of a more genuinely "adult" nature) out to be seen. That's a subversive, but still blatant, form of censorship.
Though I've heard, through an lj Torchwood site, that they may already be trying to back away from this mess they've created. I'm off to add my email to the fray. >:-)
Keep those flames, petitions and cat macros coming!