Amazon Fails.

This started on Twitter, but is beginning to explode all over the internet: Amazon has stirred controversy and roused protests from its customer base and many high-profile authors (and other names in the publishing industry) by removing the sales rankings from content deemed as “adult,” causing it to no longer show up in certain searches or on certain best-seller lists.

As if the regression back to antiquated standards of censorship wasn’t bad enough: apparently the decision as to what constitutes “adult” materials is highly discriminatory against LGBT publications. While Playboy and other materials with heterosexual adult content retain their sales rankings and remain easily available on all searches and best-seller lists, many LGBT publications with only nominal romantic or erotic content have been de-listed with little to no feasible explanation for the change except for a canned response about the new policy. At the same time, books discussing preventions, cures, or other discrimination against homosexuality retain their sales rankings and now have a more prominent position in searches for “homosexuality” with other, more relevant publications now removed from search results.

Outrage has come fast and furious, and the #amazonfail hash tag is currently the most popular one on Twitter. I’ve been following the conversations, and the outpouring of shock and anger has been growing at understandably exponential levels.

For decades many groups have fought for freedom of speech, freedom against discrimination, and freedom against censorship. Such a simple act, while seemingly innocuous, is an enormous step backwards and displays a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of equality. If the LGBT community – our stories, our authors, our world – were truly seen as equal by those at Amazon who made this decision, then this policy never would have been enacted at all.

I can only hope that this was a short-sighted mistake, and that Amazon didn’t think this or its ramifications through. I can’t imagine a corporation of this size being so willfully blind, and willfully discriminatory. An Amazon spokesperson apparently claims that it was a glitch – but another author has proof that it’s been happening since February. That’s quite a long time to go without fixing a glitch.

Whatever it is, I hope that it’s corrected soon, and that Amazon doesn’t abuse its position as a leading mainstream book retailer to force censorship on a public that never asked for it. I’d like to hold out hope, for now, rather than joining in the rabble-rousing and automatically assuming malicious intent. It’s just too senseless and irrational; there has to be a better explanation than what most are assuming. Amazon didn’t achieve its premiere ranking by being stupid.