Amazon made matters worse for itself by making a statement that
In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude 'adult' material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists.This wasn't well received as adult toys and straight erotica were not taken off the list.
The waters were muddied further when a hacker named Weev claimed that he had been the one to cause all the fuss with a few lines of code. According to other hackers, his code wasn't capable of that so it looks like he latched on to the situation to get publicity for himself. This didn't stop the comments that Amazon's system shouldn't be capable of being hacked in that way.
Finally, Amazon emailed complainants saying
This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.Apparently, an IT worker in France made a mistake that affected the whole system. As a Live Journaller called Suaine puts it:
The French programmer did it! This is going to be my new excuse for everything.
What gets me about all this is how we can all be stirred up so easily through the Internet. This isn't the first time someone has used the GLBTQ community for their own ends. There was a similar case that I heard of through Pharyngula, where a college had apparently failed a nursing student because she is lesbian, with the tutor writing in an email that she would not like to be treated by a lesbian nurse. After everyone had expressed their outrage, including sending hate mails to the tutor, questions were raised about the authenticity of the email. It's very easy to enrage us when it seems that a minority group is being done down.
I see two problems with this.
- Innocent people are witch hunted.
- Energy is wasted which could be better spent on the real issues: like governments refusing to acknowledge gay marriage.
