So what if it is a troll

[wendyzski]

the leading theory seems to be that the fact that a troll exploited amazon's ranking/delisting/flagging system which is why this whole clusterfuck blew open over this past weekend.

However, I think copperbadge has said it best:

This is very true, and I think we will see more of this in the coming days, especially if the new theory that this is trollery and exploitation of Amazon's classification system is confirmed. At that point, Amazon is not to blame for the reclassification, but rather for the apparently standard practice of removing user-designated "adult" books from their bestseller lists.

Then it becomes not about homophobia or sexphobia but about restrictive practices and bad ethics. Amazon has a legal right not to sell a book, but refusing to sell a book or promote it as it should be because of its thematic content is a business practice that I cannot support.

Comments

[petronivs.livejournal.com]

"Amazon has a legal right not to sell a book, but refusing to sell a book or promote it as it should be because of its thematic content is a business practice that I cannot support."

Huh? When did Amazon refusing to sell a book come in? All the allegations I've seen are merely that Amazon stripped the books in x category from the rankings (promotion). They still happily sold the books. As far as I can tell, the bottom line is that people are saying that Amazon (wrongly, in most of their opinions) miscategorized the books into a category which they decided they wouldn't show ratings for, which (miscategorization) could happen for any number of reasons, some understandable, some not.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

remember that this quote was early in the day. The situation is still developing even now, though there is still no official word from Amazon.

see the "or promote it as it should be because of its thematic content"...
In other words, Amazon effectively put all these books "behind the counter" - they were there if you knew to ask for them but you'd never find them just browsing the store. The first comments were from authors saying "Um - where is my book? It was there yesterday..." It is effectively indirect censorship, and hurts these author's bottom line.

While they can do business any way they wish, I can also contact a business that I patronize and say "now look old chap, this is what I'm hearing and I don't like the sound of it. Until you address/admit/fix the problem, I'm going to go elsewhere"

[petronivs.livejournal.com]

I don't have a bone with the "or promote it as it should be because of its thematic content", but the "refusing to sell" part twigged on me because I've been following this issue as it's been progressing, and I haven't seen anyone saying that Amazon's refusing to sell the books in question.