Amazon update: Tweets, boycotts and "ham-fisted errors"

if a hacker is confessing up to it, then why wouldn't amazon just say so? if it was my business, and someone hacked into it, no way would *I* take the blame. it's bad publicity i would think.

maybe i'm missing something. the whole thing has gotten way bizarre.

i'll probably still shop from there. i honestly don't know anywhere else to get things for cheap prices online.

I'm quite surprised there haven't been much discussion how this actually happened, just that it did happen? People even go back and forth with the word 'glitch' which means so many different things when talking 'tech' (well in this case some backend and front end coding and tables), right? Did certain (right wing...christian...) groups use certain tag words certain times that items were flagged or what exactly did happen? It certainly is possible that every item with the tag 'gay' or "lesbian" were auto-flagged for 'adult' if they had some backend coding problems aka 'glitch'. If that's the case I'll be understanding...don't know how many times I've done some coding mistakes LOL But if it's something else...Would like to know what really happened.

if there's a way to get rid of an Amazon account? I've already deleted my wishlist on there. From now on, I'll use my local bookstore to special order things.

I checked using the hardback of the Barrowman bio(the paperback version of which was never removed)and the sales rank was there.

I searched "The Joy of Gay Sex"(hardback edition)and the sales ranking was there.

We can shop there again.

I need more information than what they have given so far.

I never really thought it was a deliberate act from Amazon, but whatever happened it seemed too targeted. I could understand any type of attack, but if really was internal they should say what generally took place, and most importantly, what are they doing so this doesnt happen again to set my mind at ease.

This "sorry it happened and we are fixing it and thats that" attitude is not enough for me, there should be a better explanation about what happened.

The Hacker's confession: http://pastebin.ca/1390576

 

I'll wait for this to be fully cleared up before I make any boycott decisions. I love Amazon and the convenience of it, so until this proves to be their fault, I'll be witholding judgement.

it's difficult for me to do so given Amazon's response so far.  The "form" reply pissed me off and I would like to see both an explanation of what happened that I can better understand and believe, and an apology coupled with action that show me Amazon is aware how hurtful this episode has been and is doing what it can to prevent the problem from happening again.  In other words, I can't forgive them yet because I don't trust their honesty and sincerity right now..

Amazon still hasn't addressed what might be the biggest problem for GLBT customers (and in fact tries to pass the buck by making a big deal about this happening in other categories as well).  What you don't see them addressing is the fact that people were pointing out this de-ranking problem specifically in GLBT books on Amazon even back in February.  There were even threads on their site about this in their community section, dating back from two months ago, and obviously a number of the people posting on there had contacted Amazon about something that Amazon should have recognized as a potentially serious problem.

So why exactly, did it take two months and only when it became a huge internet outrage before Amazon begin taking any significant action to correct the problem?  Even if the de-rankings did occur in other categories, it was GLBT readers who had been pointing this out to Amazon, two months ago.  Wouldn't you think Amazon would have checked into this and monitored their GLBT books, since that was where multiple customers were pointing out a problem, if they took this seriously at all?

None of Amazon's explanations have addressed that part of this situation, and I'd think that'd be where a lot of the problem from GLBT customers would be, whether this problem was caused by a glitch, a hacker, or aliens from the planet Gaybookderankia. Why did Amazon not take what was going on in deranking GLBT authors seriously until they were forced to by tremendous internet pressure? 

Honestly, the more I read about this, the more I think Amazon.com is just lazy.  They thought it would be easier to just mark all the GLBT books as adult than to go through every title and seperate the actual adult books (there are many) from the general reading books.  The thing is, they probably thought no one would notice, and that it would be that big a deal.

Obviously they were wrong. 

It also isn't up to a company like Amazon to decide what material is adult, and what isn't.  Unless the book is being sold as pornography, it shouldn't be up to them to decide how to label the material.   Does the fact that the book contains sexual scenes or material automatically make it adult?  Then pretty much every mainstream romance novel would end up as an adult book.  Amazon just should have left well enough alone. 

Now, that lazy individual who decided to take the quick route is going to have to go back and fix the problem, therefor doubling the work. 

 

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Now, if Amazon had said that some employee had taken the category for "Gay and Lesbian" and placed it in the "Adult" category and that that person has been fired, I'd say, fine, that sounds "Ham-fisted". Stupid mistake because every company has their loonies and Amazon is willing to do something about it. And it should be easy to undo the glitch, take gay books off of the "Adult" category. You shouldn't have to go through book by book to undo it unless the books were targeted individually and not a "category" error or unless you really do want to ban gay material. I am not buying that excuse!

Amazon reports that the "glitch" affected books across a broad spectrum, like medical books. But I'd like to see those books, I would bet that they are books that mention homosexuality. This doesn't look like any kind of a "category" glitch because Gay and Lesbian titles were affected across the board; these bans swept across categories to include books that wouldn't necessarily be listed under a category like "Gay and Lesbian", or "Gay fiction" but that do contain gay content. Couple that with the fact that Amazon has been targeting Gay related books for the last few months (as reported by Craig Seymour). And while Amazon claims that books were effected globally by this "glitch", the company is the only ones to report that, as users in Europe and Australia found no such "glitch" while checking Amazon's foreign sites this weekend.

Fagging Flagging

A hacker troll, Weev, takes credit for writing a program to create false flagging of gay related books on the site. (a flag is like the star system at AfterEtlon, except that when you get enough flags then your book is is automatically taken off the ranking list, which is what did happen to these books.) While early sources were discrediting the code written by Weev, ABC interviewed Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, (computer security) who credits Weev with the wherewithal to do this and says "It's extremely obvious that (his code) should work."

Then there is the problem of flagging. Basically Amazon says that they allow the "community" to police itself. That's like handing a noose over to bigots and then claiming that it isn't Amazon's fault if that noose is used to hang innocent gay people. A flagging system like this and the one used at YouTube only serves bigots who run companies like Amazon, so they can encourage banning of gay related material while at the same claiming that Amazon is not liable for the bans. Well, you have to be a stark raving mad IDIOT to be blind to how bigots use flagging to oppress gay people. Groups like Amazon and YouTube are clever, it's only when little 'glitches' like this happen that we get a tiny peek into just how flawed they are.

I'll tell you what happened, in my not so humble opinion.

1) Amazon has been working to ban gay books for months. They have been doing it one book at a time and by allowing bigots to manipulate their flagging system to discriminate against gay people, something that Amazon encourages by blatantly ignoring unfair and prejudiced flagging and the damage it is doing to our community.

2) A hacker decides to do something about it, he writes a program to illustrate how easy it is for bigots to ban books on Amazon and he runs the program over Easter Weekend. Then he admits publically that he set the wheels in motion, I buy that up until he explains why. He's a bigot. He's pissed that gays flagged his Craig's List ads seeking Heroin partners. (not only is he a bigot but he's a junkie as well) This crafty, strung-out computer programer also has the resources to employ people to help him execute his scheme ("third worlders") He created a persona, an Austin Powers drugged out super villain who is set on punishing gays, (don't laugh, that isn't much of a leap from Rush Limbaugh.) I think the part about being a bigot is an obvious ploy to make his point; what could happen, did happen and happens everyday: bigots hold the reigns on the ranking system at Amazon.

Amazon doesn't want to admit to being hacked, because then they would also have to admit to a built in "flaw", namely a flagging system designed to unfairly ostracize the GLBT community.

It should be noted that Amazon's first response to this 'glitch' was to shut down their flagging system. That suggests that flagging was either the problem or Amazon knew that their flagging system was vulnerable, that is to say, Amazon intended it to create this type of 'glitch', just not on this grand a scale.

 

Why not call for Amazon to create a Gay/Lesbian (positive) section of their book store where young people and interested people could actually find useful information?  That seems like a more constructive step than anything that I've heard so far.

Where's the option on your poll for waiting for further information before making a decision?  Thinking twice about it doesn't exactly fit the bill.