Last week dozens of thousands of books quietly disappeared from Amazon’s listings and ranking system. What they all had in common was that they had either gay or ‘adult’ themes.
Make no mistake – these were not necessarily smut books – the list includes the critically acclaimed Brokeback Mountain and some of the works of noted author Gore Vidal.
As soon as the news broke, a hue and cry was raised against the online book giant’s censorship of adult-themed books.
Censorship which Amazon initially admitted, saying that the rankings had been removed because the books were “classified as adult.”
Eventually, however, Amazon backtracked, and said in a follow-up statement that it was a mistake – an “embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloguing error.” The spokesperson said that the “error” had ultimately affected 57,310 books, including gay, lesbian, erotic, and health literature.
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Either way, oops.
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There is SO much more to this than an “oops” and the repercussions for authors and readers are extensive.