Lindens Labs uses Amazon S3 to distribute viewer updates. Amazon has started blatantly discriminating against gays on their site. Calls for a boycott of all things Amazon are spreading like wildfire throughout the Twitter universe. Keyword search in Google would be "amazonfail" for more but the gist is this:
from http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2009/04/amazonfail/
"People are in an uproar over Amazon’s pulling of sales rank (and apparently searchability) of what the online retailer is labeling ‘adult’ material. The real issue here (beyond doing it in the first place) is what method Amazon is using to define ‘adult’ as some authors have been noticing a slant toward books with homosexual content, while content related to something like Playboy remain(ed) unchanged."
We aren't talking about a couple of books here including Brokeback Mountain, which is now blocked. Hundreds of books have disappeared from EDIT(rankings, not search) in the last couple of days. Here is a short list of books that have now been reclassified as "porn":
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html
Let LL know your displeasure with this new policy and point out that this is not in line with LL's TOS. LL should pull all uploads, support and monies from S3 until this is corrected.
EDIT: Thanks to Ordinal for pointing this out.
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Amazon S3 discrimination protest! |
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Jesse Barnett
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04-12-2009 17:01
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Brenda Connolly
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04-12-2009 17:11
What an amazing coincidence.
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Ciaran Laval
Mostly Harmless
Join date: 11 Mar 2007
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04-12-2009 17:13
Oh it's all part of the war of adult content, LL are part of that already. Picking on Amazon is selective pickingonation.
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Ordinal Malaprop
really very ordinary
Join date: 9 Sep 2005
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04-12-2009 17:56
This did need a new thread rather than posting on the end of something else. Amazon, the "backbone of the web" these days with the S3 service, have decided that things to do with being gay or having been gay or anything in the slightest related are basically as bad as Max Hardcore. This is unacceptable, and one of the few remedies we have is a boycott, so... here it is. And that includes SL viewer downloads.
Really, this does indicate what is meant for (whatever stupid name the Adult Continent gets). If Amazon can do it, why can't LL? _____________________
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Jesse Barnett
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04-12-2009 18:04
This did need a new thread rather than posting on the end of something else. Amazon, the "backbone of the web" these days with the S3 service, have decided that things to do with being gay or having been gay or anything in the slightest related are basically as bad as Max Hardcore. This is unacceptable, and one of the few remedies we have is a boycott, so... here it is. And that includes SL viewer downloads. Really, this does indicate what is meant for (whatever stupid name the Adult Continent gets). If Amazon can do it, why can't LL? If nothing else, this is going to demonstrate the power of Twitter, over 64,000 tweets on this today and I will not be surprised if Amazon does not back pedal tomorrow. _____________________
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Ciaran Laval
Mostly Harmless
Join date: 11 Mar 2007
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04-12-2009 18:05
Really, this does indicate what is meant for (whatever stupid name the Adult Continent gets). If Amazon can do it, why can't LL? LL are doing it, those original FAQ's were very telling and LL hiding them and saying "we didn't mean it" doesn't wash. Cromwell would be proud of this new puritian world. |
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Ghosty Kips
Elora's Llama
Join date: 2 May 2008
Posts: 2,386
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04-12-2009 18:12
Publisher's Weekly reports it's a "glitch":
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6651080.html A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up over the weekend, largely via Twitter, in response to what authors and others believed was a decision by Amazon to remove adult titles from its sales ranking. On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy. For most of the weekend on Twitter, in conversations with the hash tag "#amazonfail," users were discussing the fact that the e-tailer was removing the sales rankings for books that it deemed featured "adult content." Many readers, and writers, decried the fact that Amazon appears to be removing the sales ranking for titles that feature gay and lesbian characters and/or themes. The director of the Erotic Authors Association, who goes by the pen name Erastes, told PW that many of her members "noticed their titles had been stripped of their sales rankings" on Amazon. One, Mark Probst, contacted a customer service representative at Amazon and wrote about the exchange on his blog. Probst wrote that the Amazon rep responded to his inquiry by saying that "'adult' material" is being excluded from appearing in "some searches and best seller lists" as a "consideration of our entire customer base." Whether a glitch or new policy, titles like James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain are among the titles who have lost their ranking. _____________________
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Jesse Barnett
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04-12-2009 18:14
Hey they must have the same PR team as LL  _____________________
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Brenda Connolly
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04-12-2009 18:15
This did need a new thread rather than posting on the end of something else. Amazon, the "backbone of the web" these days with the S3 service, have decided that things to do with being gay or having been gay or anything in the slightest related are basically as bad as Max Hardcore. This is unacceptable, and one of the few remedies we have is a boycott, so... here it is. And that includes SL viewer downloads. I'm down with that. I haven't downloaded a viewer since 1.19 _____________________
Don't you ever try to look behind my eyes. You don't want to know what they have seen.
http://brenda-connolly.blogspot.com |
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Ordinal Malaprop
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04-12-2009 18:23
Politeness prevents me from saying precisely what I think of Publisher's Weekly's analysis of the situation. Given that an Amazon staffer explicitly detailed the policy. _____________________
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Ghosty Kips
Elora's Llama
Join date: 2 May 2008
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04-12-2009 18:27
Politeness prevents me from saying precisely what I think of Publisher's Weekly's analysis of the situation. Given that an Amazon staffer explicitly detailed the policy. Do you have a link to that detailing? PW's page isn't loading for me now.  _____________________
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Jesse Barnett
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04-12-2009 18:33
Do you have a link to that detailing? PW's page isn't loading for me now. From what I can deduce, this was the start of the tweet storm: http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html _____________________
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Talon Brown
Slacker Punk
Join date: 17 May 2006
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04-12-2009 18:49
That's the "explicit detailing of the policy" that sparked all this outrage? Ok...yeah this might very well show the power of Twitter but not in the light you'd hope.
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Weston Graves
Werebeagle
Join date: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 2,059
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04-12-2009 18:50
I will at least buy nothing from Amazon until this is settled. I shake my head in wonder and hope it isn't true - that it is exaggerated.
Yet I should know better. I lived through a time not so long ago when we long haired guys were told we were unclean freaks by people who worshiped images of a guy with long hair. And still today people think that making love to another is obscene, yet munching on slaughtered animals is a community event. (I'm no vegetarian - it's just an example of the backward, inside the box thinking of our specious species.) This is not the 21st century I had hoped for. |
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Sindy Tsure
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Join date: 18 Sep 2006
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04-12-2009 18:51
Politeness prevents me from saying precisely what I think of Publisher's Weekly's analysis of the situation. Given that an Amazon staffer explicitly detailed the policy. Oh! Oh!! Is it "bulshytt"?? /me knows she got it right! What do I win?? |
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Ciaran Laval
Mostly Harmless
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04-12-2009 18:51
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Ghosty Kips
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04-12-2009 18:52
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Nika Talaj
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04-12-2009 18:56
From what I can deduce, this was the start of the tweet storm: http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html ... I will not be surprised if Amazon does not back pedal tomorrow. Amazon has had to do some work recently on content filtering, to accomodate the advertising on Kindle. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it WERE a glitch. Consider how much revenue Amazon gets from both gay and adult literature - I doubt that they are so "public-spirited" that they would endanger that in the interests of prudery. . |
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Brenda Connolly
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04-12-2009 19:31
Oh! Oh!! Is it "bulshytt"?? /me knows she got it right! What do I win?? A $100 Amazon Gift Certificate. _____________________
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Jesse Barnett
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04-12-2009 19:40
Looks to me like a formulaic response from a random support employee, scarcely a statement of policy from an 18+ billion dollar company. Neither will I, since a "backpedal" will be indistinguishable from an honest response if they DID have some sort of glitch. Amazon has had to do some work recently on content filtering, to accomodate the advertising on Kindle. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it WERE a glitch. Consider how much revenue Amazon gets from both gay and adult literature - I doubt that they are so "public-spirited" that they would endanger that in the interests of prudery. . Hey! I protest that you are protesting our protest! It is still amazing that just one tweet ballooned to the top ranked twitter search within one hour and then 60,000+ tweets in a couple of hours and now is in quite a few news articles in different newspapers around the country AND finally received a company response within a few hours. Not bad and Viva La Revolucion!!!!!!(and with a total . savings of over 6!!!) _____________________
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Isablan Neva
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04-12-2009 20:25
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it WERE a glitch. Consider how much revenue Amazon gets from both gay and adult literature - I doubt that they are so "public-spirited" that they would endanger that in the interests of prudery. . Amazon has another, even worse, black spot on their history. They have spent the past 2 years fighting a nasty legal battle with the Humane Society over the selling of dog fighting and cock fighting materials and videos. The Humane Society actually had to sue Amazon to get the stuff taken off the website. _____________________
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Viktoria Dovgal
…
Join date: 29 Jul 2007
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04-12-2009 20:35
If you're going to boycott S3, it's not going to be enough to avoid viewer downloads. S3 is also the secondary asset server for SL, where stuff that hasn't been used in a while goes.
ETA: SLURL maps run off that now too. |
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Anti Antonelli
Deranged Toymaker
Join date: 25 Apr 2006
Posts: 1,091
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04-12-2009 20:41
It's a shame that "purveyors and customers of sexually oriented content in Second Life" is not a large enough/active enough/organized enough group to generate a similar level of bad press for the strikingly similar move planned by Linden Lab.
The successful googlebombing of "Amazon Rank" in such a short time is a thing of beauty to behold, though  _____________________
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Jesse Barnett
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04-12-2009 20:47
If you're going to boycott S3, it's not going to be enough to avoid viewer downloads. S3 is also the secondary asset server for SL, where stuff that hasn't been used in a while goes. ETA: SLURL maps run off that now too. Yes. It was interesting seeing in Twitter just how far reaching Amazon/Amazon S3/Amazon EC2(Cloud) is. The list just keeps growing and growing.................. _____________________
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Winter Ventura
Eclectic Randomness
Join date: 18 Jul 2006
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04-12-2009 20:56
I was honestly impressed that amazon.com allowed sales of vibrators, porn, hentai anime, and full on sex-machines.. this seems like a rather severe reversal.
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