a slight bit more on Amazon

[juldea]

One of the best posts on the Amazon thing I've seen was written by slammerkinbabe. A++++++++ would read again and link all over the freakin' place (like I just did right here!)

Comments

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

just skimmed, because TL;dr, at work... but in general agree.

However, the good news is that it means that Amazon isn't at fault. It reminds us that we should be trying to change society, but it also means that we shouldn't be boycotting Amazon.

So, the fact that it was a mistake, IS a good thing, and SHOULD have an effect...

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Amazon is at fault. That was the entire point. They implemented a censorship system in the world's biggest bookstore. That's reprehensible.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Technically, it's only censorship when it's the government. They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things. I have no problem with them having an adult tag so that 6 year old don't accidentally find porn.

My problem is when "my two mommies" gets listed as adult.

re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

And they chose that no one gets to see things that are "adult".

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

No, they those that those things don't get rated with all of their other searches. If you searched for a specific title, it would still come up, it was still there. It just wouldn't come up. Which, again, if they defined "adult" correctly, I'm perfectly fine with.

I'd prefer if they had a separate ranking that included "adult" and some way of selecting that. Presumably with "include adult" being OFF by default. But whatever.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

If you used a book's title as the search parameter, it would not show up if it was flagged "adult". Was your experience different?

Which, again, if they defined "adult" correctly, I'm perfectly fine with.

Which, again, since I am an adult, I am horrified by.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that they had things in their catalog that you couldn't get to come up? That seems a bit odd. Why would they bother to enter things into the catalog that they weren't going to let people buy? That's a bug that got fixed, not a design decision that was made badly.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

They were not just removed from rankings, they were removed from searches and recommendations. That makes them invisible.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Ok, so that's a bug, which they fixed. Having an adult tag that lets them do something different with some content is not something I have a problem with. There's no way that they're going to have content on their system that no one can actually reach. That's just dumb. They'll either refuse to list certain items, or show it with caveats.

Anything else is a technical issue which needs to be (and was) fixed.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Having an adult tag that lets them do something different with some content is not something I have a problem with.

Depends on what they do with it. If they restrict my access, I have a big problem with it. If they restrict my minor child's access, I'll just roll my eyes and let him use my account.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

If they're restricting your access, then they've got a bug. They're in the business of making money selling stuff. If you want to buy something that they sell, and they make it difficult, then that's a UI bug.

Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

Also, it's not just a minor child that I want not finding porn, or whatnot. I want that stuff to not come up if I'm doing a search at work. Granted, I'm not that likely to search for something that might have porn associated with it, but if I am, it would save me a lot of embarassment if I could say "don't show adult things".

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

I don't object to your having the option of a work-safe search. That's actually a pretty good idea. But they created a poorly implemented mandatory work-safe search, and whatever they intended, I want an apology.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Curious: would you object to adult content being automatically filtered if one were not logged into the site when searching, but if you have an account it being NOT filtered unless a toggle were switched on?

Re: automatically filtered

[etherial.livejournal.com]

While my gut says "yes, I would object to automatic filtering for not-logged-in-searches", as that would impair my ability to judge the worth of the site before creating an account, my brain is aware that that mostly defeats the entire point of having filtering.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[londo.livejournal.com]

I think you're underestimating the extent of Etherial's opposition to censorship regardless of the content of the censored material.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[flyingindie.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I went to Amazon and searched for every homosexual- and transgender-themed book I could think of. I found them all.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Yes, to the best of anyone's knowledge, it is currently fixed. But it took two months for enough people to notice for it to get fixed. How long will it take next time?

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[flyingindie.livejournal.com]

Well, it's up to all of us to make sure they don't fuck it up again. Hopefully they are quite scared by this giant screw up. If it happened again, people would stop using Amazon, and their corporate motivation and survival dictates that is a bad, bad thing, regardless of their ideology.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[outlander.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, a blanket search on the term 'homosexuality' still starts with books about the bible & preventions & cures. It is not fixed yet.

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

That's actually a problem with their ratings model. Since they order books by ratings, and users GIVE ratings, it lets the crazies rate those books highly and other books lower and thus they appear earlier. At least that's my impression of how the ratings work.

The good news is that we can fix this ourselves, but rating books. The bad news is that it's OUR responsibility to fix this, and most of us have other things to do with our time...

In any case, this is the blessing/curse of community based ratings...

Re: They implemented a mechanism whereby they can choose which people get to see which things.

[goldbug.livejournal.com]

Do they order books by ratings (3 stars, etc) or rankings (sales # xyz)? I thought it was sales ranking.

[londo.livejournal.com]

Censorship is censorship regardless of government involvement or lack thereof. It's just that it's not unconstitutional when done by private entities.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

No, its not censorship. censorship must be done by someone with official authority. A company cannot censor you, unless you work there.

Amazon.com, Walmart, Borders, McDonalds, etc, can refuse to sell any item they want. They aren't censoring the person who wrote the book they won't sell. They're just forcing that person to find another avenue to sell it.

The fact that Christianbookstore.com (I don't know that that exists, but I assume it does) refuses to sell books about sex-ed, that's perfectly fine, and not censorship.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Just to be pedantic, the dictionary definition of "censoring" is "to remove something to be deemed unacceptable or offensive," so to remove things from search due to their unacceptability (i.e. adultness) is indeed censorship.

But it doesn't have the same moral weight when coming from a private company as if it were to come from the government, yeah.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Depends on the dictionary... Acording to dictionary.com, censorship is the act of a censor. ok, not interesting. but a censor is "an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds."

Key word being "official"

But yeah, that's only if we're being pedantic, which I always am B-)

[etherial.livejournal.com]

To continue with the pedantry, official is not required to be a government official, per se. Indeed, it was never the government censors that gave television and movie writers the hardest time, but the corporate ones.