AmazonFail: The Morning After

[rm]

The morning brings us:

Amazon's assertion that it was all just a glitch.

My response? Computers do what you tell them to. This is a glitch that involved human error, homophobic human error. Amazon needs to issue a clear statement that what happened was against policy, is being corrected, is being investigated and that they enjoy serving a broad spectrum of customers, including those interested in gay and lesbian topics. Others agree.

Assertions that the whole thing might be a result of trolling, not dissimilar to the initial set of events that lead to StrikeThrough.

Could be. This does nothing to change that Amazon handed it badly and needs to issue some apologies/statements as noted above.

I also take issue with the assertion that trolling is some sort of public service meant to demonstrate flaws in assumed trust relationships. It's one more form of Internet bullying and harassment.

A fabulous piece in AfterEllen that deserved to be read about the representation of queer characters in media. It speaks to something I make a lot of noise about at panels on fanfiction and it's nice to be hearing it from other quarters.

Annoyance that people got up in arms about this because obviously it wasn't going to turn out to be as nefarious as it seemed.

Public outrage is the Stick of Efficiency. Accidental bias is still bias and still creates a problem. This matter getting public attention in a manner that was largely civilized was useful. If it hadn't gone down this way, authors affects would still be trying to sort this out with Amazon a month from now, as demonstrated by several cases of books that were affected by this nonsense as early as February.

Frustration that the petition didn't adequately address the range of stuff affected, including bisexual and trans content. I agree. It's also the petition everyone is signing. What to do? Competing petitions = bad plan.

Comments

[herself_nyc]

A 'glitch'. Yeah, right.

I seem to have lost your email address, but I just wanted to wave at you about the writers' group idea — I know you're busy with lots of things and your partner just returning from that long separation, but I didn't want the idea to fall away altogether if you're interested in discussing it further. (And if you're not, or the timing soonish is just no good, no harm, no foul).

[rm.livejournal.com]

Totally interested. I have Germans in the office today, but I will send you a sensible email about it tonight or tomorrow morning.

Also racheline@ gmail dot com

[herself_nyc]

Excellent.

And I'll hang on to the address now; I usually don't delete emails but I must've deleted yours, so thanks for reminding me.

Good luck with your Germans!

[hughcasey.livejournal.com]

My guess is that Amazon had this system running on autopilot, and either some outside group or an internal employee or department decided to game it. Amazon does need to apologize (even if it was a "glitch", apologize for the glitch, dammit!), and they should come clean about what happened (we don't need details... why give info on how to do this to another party to use?). And they need to FIX it.

My biggest issues are:

1. They had a system that could be gamed THIS badly... can you say IT-fail?

2. The system took items off of the lists WITHOUT REVIEW. That's just poor management. Actually, I don't have a problem with customers flagging things as "adult", but they need to be looked at to see if the label applies, AND they should come off of the ranking and search lists, even if they ARE adult content! Just say "Hey, this is adult content", and that's that!

My guess is that heads are going to roll at Amazon. I'd like them to be the right heads.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Your assessment is pretty much what I think happened and why it's still not okay.

[fragiletender.livejournal.com]

Yep, absolutely. Even if this was gaming (and we don't have proof of that yet, although I've had my suspicions throughout), then if you're able to be gamed with this sort of result, you have a definite IT problem.

However, Amazon's bigger problem, in my eyes, is that they didn't take immediate control of the situation and indeed they still haven't. 'Oh dear, a software glitch' is not an apology or a remedy for the situation.

I can understand why this sort of thing happens, especially on a public holiday - no one wants to put their head above the company parapet for fear they'll get it shot off and so they take too long to respond. However, incidents like Strikethrough show that its absolutely disastrous to let the internet get the jump on you. And they did. And for an internet based company that's just bloody stupidity. It's not like trolling or gaming or internet outrage is a sudden new phenomenon, for heaven's sake!

They've let this spiral into a PR disaster that the mainstream media are now covered whereas if they'd moved fast, it could all have been avoided.

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the updates!

The Guardian put out a pretty good article as well.

Also, there is now a Facebook group: Amazonfail.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

That's nice, Amazon. I do not believe you and you will not get my business back.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Still giggling that the one book you had to order from them was Plato's The Symposium.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

I am too, believe me. Amazon will surely be relieved to be absolved forever of the moral dilemma of taking gay money from a gay person for a gay book.

[sethg]

Computers do what you tell them to.

If everyone understood this simple fact about IT, Microsoft's stock would drop like a brick.

[hakeber.livejournal.com]

Well? Did he?

[rm.livejournal.com]

No.

RT @vashtan Good police work by @BryantD: "The brutal_honesty guy is lying. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/dxc5w7 #amazonfail

[fragiletender.livejournal.com]

"Annoyance that people got up in arms about this because obviously it wasn't going to turn out to be as nefarious as it seemed."

Yes. This.

I saw a little bit of 'OMG, why is everyone making such a stupid fuss' from someone I otherwise respect and I thought it was interesting that she didn't get why it was a problem and thought that only the authors affected had any right to be annoyed. I suspect that she just hadn't bothered to research it and was just dismissing it as 'oh noes, internet drama'.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Interesting:

http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html

I think this describes how well a bantown thing went down. I've gone over the shell programming and up to the point where he hires others (which obviously I can't verify) , it does what he says. Hrm.

I mean for example, the links program (which looks like a variation on lynx: http://links.sourceforge.net/

The tags are there, and all that. So if he got ppl to work on putting the code in (tho he didn't specify the html code part) it looks plausible.

[rm.livejournal.com]

RT @vashtan Good police work by @BryantD: "The brutal_honesty guy is lying. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/dxc5w7 #amazonfail

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Ha! Next time I'll have to download and install links (or equiv) to see what it actually produces :-P

[marcmagus]

Eh, there are a few different things which could potentially be symlinked as /usr/bin/links. I have links2, which performs as bryant describes. Lynx performs exactly as described, and brutal_honesty could easily have slipped and typed "links" when they meant "lynx" (note use of lynx lower). Other versions might be more drop-in compatibile with lynx.

It definitely works to get product numbers...the rest of the discussion (about whether the claimed report link actually existed and worked, and whether you can believe the guy anyway) is much more relevant.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

the LOLcats of #amazonfail are coming! the LOLcats are coming!

http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=3929263

[misch.livejournal.com]

Or, there's this.

I was thinking I could program something like this, I just couldn't do the cross-site scripting

[rm.livejournal.com]

RT @vashtan Good police work by @BryantD: "The brutal_honesty guy is lying. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/dxc5w7 #amazonfail

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got the "It's a glitch" email from Amazon Customer Service last night.

After I said I had noticed the problem while looking for a friend's books. And I wasn't going to spend any more money with Amazon until the discrimination was stopped.

Amazing how a glitch only involved GLBT books.

[akemi42.livejournal.com]

My response? Computers do what you tell them to. This is a glitch that involved human error, homophobic human error.

When the last time you wrote code to group millions of books (some of which you only have a title) based on content? It's more complicated than telling a computer what to do. It's not as simple as "keywords." Google changes its algorithms all the time and I don't see why people can't believe Amazon does the same. This conspiracy theory is so much more complicated and far-fetched.

Amazon needs to issue a clear statement that what happened was against policy, is being corrected, is being investigated and that they enjoy serving a broad spectrum of customers, including those interested in gay and lesbian topics.

I agree, but I am going to give them until COB on Tuesday.

Kudos To RM!

[keith418.livejournal.com]

I immediately protested and so did my spouse.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

This is a really excellent round-up, and your final point was something that stuck in my craw a bit, but I overlooked because a decisive, powerful message is going to move more mountains than many little tiny messages.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

I wish they would say something about how they are aware that they made a mistake and are trying to fix it on their front page. They don't, and so I went to their Press Release Page and they say nothing about it there, either. This is disheartening.

I've asked if I can have some of my Amazon Prime membership fee refunded if they don't resolve this matter promptly and properly, and was told "absolutely not" but I wouldn't have paid for a membership if I had known about this. :/

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've asked if I can have some of my Amazon Prime membership fee refunded if they don't resolve this matter promptly and properly, and was told "absolutely not" but I wouldn't have paid for a membership if I had known about this. :/

Uncool and another thing worth making noise about where others will see it.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I signed the petition but included a "signing statement" in my comments clarifying and expanding the position.

[unrund.livejournal.com]

http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/2009/04/idosyncratic-code-amazonfail/

Saintcrow has excerpts of an email that explains what happened and makes the whole mess sound believable.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Hi, just wanted to let you know that I've been lurking for a bit now and that I quoted you on an lj post of mine here (http://eumelia.livejournal.com/400001.html).

And would it be all right if I friended you?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Feel free, welcome. Also, your icon = win.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

A few years ago when people were looking closely at political contributions by major corporations it came out that Amazon gave more to Republican candidates than it did to Democratic candidates. It wasn't extreme, something like 60/40 and was largely reversed after 2004. But even that 60/40 was enough to make some people say that they would never do business with Amazon again. I thought that was a bit of an overreaction at best and verging on discriminatory.

This is vastly different than that. I will give them a little time and see what they do, but it had better be good. And I also have spent a sizeable amount of money there the last nine years and was about to give them the opportunity to make commissions off me as well. I'll be quite happy to pull that plug if they don't shape up.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

*smirk* I do see a box on Amazon's front page now touting Gay Pride apparel.

[gement.livejournal.com]

If you haven't seen it, a decent and clueful opinion piece championing the "that's not a good enough excuse" position. http://rnash.com/article/amazonfail-a-straight-white-male-publisher-on-glitches-and-ham-fisted-error/