Amazon: Failure of Leadership

Amazon has decided that gay and lesbian themed books are no longer going to be on its best seller lists, and therefore not searchable. This appears to have occurred at the same time that Amazon is removing adult books from these lists.

In the last 24 hours, the Twittersphere has exploded with a huge number of posts about #Amazonfail and now, in response to Amazon’s claim that it was a “glitch” #glitchmyass .

Here is a blogpost about the anatomy of what went wrong. As a PR disaster, this move by Amazon is right up there.

Here is an article from the LA Times setting out Amazon’s position, and the rejoinder.

The reality, just as the LA Times has identified, is that just because a book has a gay or lesbian theme does not mean that it is pornographic. To blanket ban social topics in this way may well amount to engaging in unlawful discrimination.