Monday, April 13, 2009

Amazon Censorship

On Thursday last week the ranking disappeared from my Amazon page for my story collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World. Well, no one can call me paranoid: I just decided that they must have removed the ranking facility altogether (and I was busy so I didn't bother to check anyone else's). Then on Saturday it appeared again and I decided it had just been a glitch.

But what do I discover today but that Amazon have apparently removed the ranking facility from all books with 'adult' content. Seems that in response to a massive protest Amazon are now saying that it was just a glitch but here's the reply which Mark Probst received from Amazon when he inquired:
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. 

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services 
Amazon.com Advantage (Quoted from Mark Probst’s Blog)
The most outrageous aspect of this is that by 'adult' Amazon seems to mean 'gay and lesbian', so that classic gay and lesbian books without the inclusion of explicit sex have had their ranking removed while books including explicit hetereosexual sex have been left alone. (God knows what happened with mine: did they take another look at the one erotic story in my book and decide that because it was heterosexual sex it was OK after all?)

It is of course a matter of extreme concern that an organization with the power of Amazon could practise such censorship, and I urge you to sign the petition set up to protest.

Here's a post by Anne Brooke on the Vulpes Libris blog, which supplies more details.

8 comments:

nmj said...

Hey Eliz, Such censorship is downright scary, but I have noticed that my ranking too disappears periodically - along with others - but usually rights itself within a day or two. I reckoned it was just a glitch...

Elizabeth Baines said...

Well, it probably was for my book, Nasim, but they really have taken off a whole swathe of gay and lesbian books - and it made the national TV news this evening.

nmj said...

It's awful, hard to believe. So they practise v.dodgy censorship and don't give their sick workers breaks...what can be done?

Anne Brooke said...

Thanks, Elizabeth - much appreciated. It seems that the rankings for GLBT books might slowly, slowly be coming back, but we'll keep our eyes wide open from now on, for sure ...

Hugs

Axxx

Rod Duncan said...

This kind of censorship is very worrying - because of Amazon's dominance in the market. Perhaps it gives us a nudge to look elsewhere when we are buying books online?

Elizabeth Baines said...

The Book Depository is a great alternative - cheaper than Amazon, too they say.

Sheenagh Pugh said...

f the Book depository is cheaper than Amazon, is it because they demand an even larger rake-off, thus leaving less for the publisher? My daughter works for a small press which cannot afford to market books an Amazon; it takes all their profit. Waterstones aren't much better. Most small publishers these days can sell via their own web sites and if people would buy that way, it would help small presses stay in business and pay authors too.

Elizabeth Baines said...

Good point, Sheenagh. I don't know the answer to your question re The Book Depository, but I agree re small publishers: I always direct people to my own publisher's website, and have always been a bit baffled as to why others with small publishers don't do so.