AmazonFail
Posted on | April 20, 2009 | No Comments
Okay, I’m a little late in posting about this but I was just reading something that was posted on LiveJournal’s metaquote community about Amazon.com inadvertently hiding all LGBT items in its catalog from general searches. The person being quoted had said, in essence, that everyone was having a knee-jerk reaction to the whole thing, calling Amazon.com homophobic, etc. I have to agree with this person.
Nearly every gay-themed book I’ve purchased has been through Amazon.com, though not recently. I’ve purchased numerous gay-themed movies from there as well. I find it hard to believe that they would suddenly go homophobic. I also find it difficult to believe that they would express their homophobia by hiding this material, rather than just removing it altogether.
People commenting on this quoted item in the community are demanding that Amazon.com apologize. I’m not a fan of company apologies. They always come across to me as just being a good business move, rather than a genuine apology. They want answers too, even though they’ve already been given one. It was an error, possibly due to a language barrier issue.
Here’s the thing, as I see it. I’ve incorrectly categorized my own blog entries before. It’s not difficult to put a check in the wrong box. It’s really easy to do. Trust me. Having worked with web design and maintenance, as well as with databases I can completely grasp the possibility that this was an honest mistake. On the off chance that this was some homophobic Amazon.com employee’s plot to bring down the evil LGBT community, I can’t blame Amazon.com as a whole. They’re making an effort to repair the problem, assuming it hasn’t already been corrected.
Quit crying foul at the drop of a hat, people. Take a deep breath. Take an assessment of the situation. What facts do you know and what hearsay have you heard? I’ve utilized Amazon.com too much to believe they’ve gone to the dark side. Everyone is so on guard about being discriminated against that they are crying wolf and pointing fingers even before all of the facts are in. They are pre-judging others. Isn’t prejudice what we’re really against?
Get-the fuck-over it. It was a God damn error. In the unlikely event that it was something malicious, Amazon.com is no more to blame for it than Dominos was to blame for two assholes, giving you snotty, flatulent cheese in your pizza.
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