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Apr. 13th, 2009 12:37 pmAmazon's rank offense appears to have been (or is in the process of being) rectified... several of the books that had been de-listed (all the ones I checked, in fact) are now showing up again, with their ranks restored.
Someone on LJ's taken the "troll" theory (the idea that this was done by an outside agency manipulating a feedback system) and decided to run with it... I'm not going to dignify his attempt at attention whoring by linking to it, but if you're active in the right LJ communities you've probably seen it by now. Suffice it to say, there are holes in his explanation and the actual trolling he's doing is in his post taking credit.
Across the internet, where the outrage has flourished, there have also been comments along the lines of "Who cares?" and "Amazon's a private company, why not let them do business how they want?" and "The books are still available for sale, this isn't really bigotry and anyway Amazon is a west coast liberal company."
"Who cares?" is obviously a stupid question when it's being asked in response to a massive demonstration of the answer. Amazon's certainly a private company... and we're all private citizens, and we're entitled to do business how we see fit, as well. Our dollars and our voices are ours to use. Amazon's calling it a glitch, but assuming they made a business decision, that's not the same thing as making infallible holy writ. We can make them realize it's a bad decision.
It's the last sort of sentiment that bothers me the most, actually, because the most insidious forms of discrimination are often the most subtle, and the hardest to get people who aren't invested in the issue to care about:
"Fifty years ago these books wouldn't even be published and now you're complaining because you don't get a sales rank? Jesus you people are touchy. I don't remember anything in the Constitution about sales ranks. When is it going to be enough?"
It's going to be enough when we have equal rights. That doesn't mean everybody has to like us or that nobody's allowed to say a word against us. It means equal rights. It means we don't have to worry about this kind of shit. It means we don't have to fear the next person or company or government that's going to decide we need to be sanitized and screened from view. It means we don't have to wonder what the next step's going to be, what might happen if we aren't able to stop this here and now and if the people who are behind it get emboldened by their success, or embolden others.
There's been a whole mess o' conversations about representation in fiction and how hard it is for minorities to find people like themselves in literature. GLBTQ (and friendly authors) have made some impressive strides, but if the most visible bookseller on the planet works to make us invisible... you know, I can't even finish this thought. If somebody doesn't get why this is important, I don't think I'm going to be the one who can explain it to them.
I'm being told that some of the books that were de-ranked are still not restored, though, and I haven't seen any new statements from Amazon... so this is definitely something to keep an eye on.
Someone on LJ's taken the "troll" theory (the idea that this was done by an outside agency manipulating a feedback system) and decided to run with it... I'm not going to dignify his attempt at attention whoring by linking to it, but if you're active in the right LJ communities you've probably seen it by now. Suffice it to say, there are holes in his explanation and the actual trolling he's doing is in his post taking credit.
Across the internet, where the outrage has flourished, there have also been comments along the lines of "Who cares?" and "Amazon's a private company, why not let them do business how they want?" and "The books are still available for sale, this isn't really bigotry and anyway Amazon is a west coast liberal company."
"Who cares?" is obviously a stupid question when it's being asked in response to a massive demonstration of the answer. Amazon's certainly a private company... and we're all private citizens, and we're entitled to do business how we see fit, as well. Our dollars and our voices are ours to use. Amazon's calling it a glitch, but assuming they made a business decision, that's not the same thing as making infallible holy writ. We can make them realize it's a bad decision.
It's the last sort of sentiment that bothers me the most, actually, because the most insidious forms of discrimination are often the most subtle, and the hardest to get people who aren't invested in the issue to care about:
"Fifty years ago these books wouldn't even be published and now you're complaining because you don't get a sales rank? Jesus you people are touchy. I don't remember anything in the Constitution about sales ranks. When is it going to be enough?"
It's going to be enough when we have equal rights. That doesn't mean everybody has to like us or that nobody's allowed to say a word against us. It means equal rights. It means we don't have to worry about this kind of shit. It means we don't have to fear the next person or company or government that's going to decide we need to be sanitized and screened from view. It means we don't have to wonder what the next step's going to be, what might happen if we aren't able to stop this here and now and if the people who are behind it get emboldened by their success, or embolden others.
There's been a whole mess o' conversations about representation in fiction and how hard it is for minorities to find people like themselves in literature. GLBTQ (and friendly authors) have made some impressive strides, but if the most visible bookseller on the planet works to make us invisible... you know, I can't even finish this thought. If somebody doesn't get why this is important, I don't think I'm going to be the one who can explain it to them.
I'm being told that some of the books that were de-ranked are still not restored, though, and I haven't seen any new statements from Amazon... so this is definitely something to keep an eye on.