Looking back on #amazonfail
Two good write-ups today on the weekend phenomenon in which many smart people became swept up in moral outrage based on flimsy logic.
If you missed it, Clay Shirky summarizes it thusly:
After an enormous number of books relating to lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered (LGBT) themes lost their Amazon sales rank, and therefore their visibility in certain Amazon list and search functions, we participated in a public campaign, largely coordinated via the Twitter keyword #amazonfail (a form of labeling called a hashtag) because of a perceived injustice at the hands of that company, an injustice that didn’t actually occur.
Mary Hodder would probably agree with most of that history. But in her take on the event, she finds there is still reason for outrage, even if Amazon wasn’t deliberately trying to sweep gay titles under the rug:
The issue with #AmazonFail isn’t that a French Employee pressed the wrong button or could affect the system by changing “false” to “true” in filtering certain “adult” classified items, it’s that Amazon’s system has assumptions such as: sexual orientation is part of “adult”. And “gay” is part of “adult.” In other words, #AmazonFail is about the subconscious assumptions of people built into algorithms and classification that contain discriminatory ideas. When other employees use the system, whether they themselves agree with the underlying assumptions of the algorithms and classification system, or even realize the system has these point’s of view built in, they can put those assumptions into force, as the Amazon France Employee apparently did according to Amazon.
Shirky found himself part of the #amazonfail mob, and is now embarrassed by his assumptions:
Though the #amazonfail event is important for several reasons, I can’t write about it dispassionately, because I was an enthusiastic participant in its use on Sunday. I was wrong, because I believed things that weren’t true. As bad as that was, though, far worse is the retrofitting of alternate rationales to continue to view Amazon with suspicion, rationales that would not have provoked the outrage we felt had they been all we were asked to react to in the first place.
Shirky calls this “conservation of outrage.” Once you realize the original thing you were upset about doesn’t exist, there is a great temptation to find an alternate target. We’ve all done that.
Beyond the conspiracy theories, what I found most interesting about #amazonfail were tweets demanding to know why Amazon hadn’t corrected the problem just hours after the term had surged on Twitter. It speaks to the speed of popular culture — and the sugar-high of Twitter — that we expect every problem to be identified and remedied immediately. Five minutes feels like an eternity.
Articles
April 15th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I think people are quick to judge, quick to get up in arms, but not very quick to admit they were wrong or to forgive. Just pick up a history book…
I have to admit, I’m not the best at staying in the loop — like the whole name-a-NASA-node-for-Colbert thing? yeah, totally missed that — but I think sometimes that’s for the best.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Question is: Wouldn’t this have been in the mainstream media by tuesday if the moral outrage had not been so quick? Great quote on “the system” btw.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
The “glitch” may have been over-dramatized, but the problem of systemic bias IMO is worthy of outrage, and if this swarm of, what, twitchers(?) brought attention to it, good. Perhaps we should view Amazon not with less suspicion but other institutions with more.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I’m afraid what still ticks me off about the entire affair is the fact that Amazon hasn’t bothered with more than a cursory explanation given without apology. I, too, kept abreast of the event this Sunday past — and watched as it still bloomed on Monday. The lessons about the speed of information will go on for quite some time (I hope!), but I cannot in good conscience, continue to patronize a company that 1) gave the impression of ignoring the problem and 2) has yet to apologize for all the upset and lost sales they caused.
Flimsy logic and rumors cause people’s perceptions to alter, for good or ill. And we all know perception is reality. Maybe someone needs to explain that to The Powers That Be at Amazon?
April 15th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
While there’s little use denying that #amazonfail was an overreaction, and perhaps even a rather embarrassing one for us twitter folks, I think there’s a silver lining here. The fact that so many so quickly and enthusiastically stood up against a perceived threat (whether real/intentional or not) toward a minority is pretty impressive.
That there exists a place where we can rally the troops that fast, and that there are even troops willing to be rallied at even a hint of injustice gives me hope when there’s so much oppression out there. While I saw a few hasty (in my opinion) calls to boycott Amazon, I saw many more demanding explanation and for the problem to be fixed. I think #amazonfail has served as an important lesson that, as you say, we need to be careful not to get so swept away by our emotions that we incriminate the innocent (or at least those who aren’t guilty of what we’re accusing).
That being said, the outpouring of support for the GLBT community, even if it was an overreaction in this instance, does give me hope that there are those willing to band together in the future to fight for both equal treatment and equal rights.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
“It speaks to the speed of popular culture — and the sugar-high of Twitter — that we expect every problem to be identified and remedied immediately. Five minutes feels like an eternity.”
Louis CK nailed our sometimes self-important, ridiculously impatient nature when he was a guest on Conan a few months ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus
April 15th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I’m happy to say this is the first time to memory that I disagree with you, John.
The moral outrage may be inflated. But these aren’t jurors – they’re tweeters. They could be the greatest morons of all time; they’re still calling attention to a legitimate issue, even if none of them mention it accurately.
I realize that it was a stupid mentality to assume that Amazon was secretly waging a backstage propaganda war. And I never bought into that conspiracy-nut nonsense.
But they did make a completely bullshit categorization, which draws on and enforces utterly bogus, disparaging, and already alarmingly pervasive misconceptions – and I’m being generous with the term “misconception” here.
I’m worried the apologism going on post-#amazonfail. It’s completely de-legitimizing a truly legitimate complaint, far more than any stupid outrage had initially done.
And Shirky is completely wrong.
The thing that people were outraged about did happen.
The reason for why it happened was buried in fiction, yes. But the thing that happened is still there. I agree that it may be manslaughter and not murder, but there is a body rotting in the street that needs to be accounted for.
And now, it won’t be, because the prominent faces in the prosecution are apologizing for the wrong thing, and the volume of their apology will likely silence the legitimate complaints of the little people.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
@ Mani
You saying that Shirky is completely wrong is bullshit. His point is that for better or worse the data we consume every day has to be categorized somehow. The methods are imperfect for sure, but for the time being there’s no way around it.
Somewhere along the line there were highly fallible human beings at work, and they screwed up. As far as a big corporation like Amazon is concerned this has already been punitive enough, and you can be damn sure a lot of other companies have been taking notes.
A partial victory for a partial mistake seems fair.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:30 am
The Problem is there was something bad going on. And the Tweeters shouted it out. Yeah. Someone screamed censorship, and maybe even someone thought it was a big bad fight behind the Scenes against gay or even adult books. But there is always someone screaming something like that. “The Presidents dog is named the same way as my cat. (True) The FBI must be monitoring my home. (Bullshit, maybe)” But if the true thing is bad, its still bad, even if someone builds a tower of dumb ideas on it. So yeah, there may be a #tweeterfail, but that doesn’t mean that the #amazonfail is not true.
George
April 16th, 2009 at 1:21 am
@ GP Schnyder
The #amazonfail is not true because it was based on the “tower of dumb ideas” you mentioned. It was a jump to conclusions, no matter how understandable that jump was. So if the ideas are not true, the movement is no longer true.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Jesus Christ, with all the other shit going down in this country, THIS gets the monkeys throw to poo. #luxuryproblemfail
April 16th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Huh? I’m sorry – who canonized the “Amazon press release” version of events as the truth? “An injustice that didn’t actually occur”?! Because Amazon SAID it didn’t occur? Wow. You don’t think maybe they’re changing their story now to save face (and customer base)? Right… We were all so silly to kick up a fuss! No – we kicked up a fuss that caused Amazon to quickly retract their initial attempts. We win – they say they “Weren’t even trying”. It’s textbook childishness. And people believe them. As Bill Hicks used to say, “Go back to sleep, America.”
April 16th, 2009 at 10:38 am
John, Do you agree with Shirky’s or Mary’s assessment? I agree with Mary’s assessment that categorizing “gay” themed books as “adult” is a real problem worthy of attention.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Interesting video on this topic….
http://tinyurl.com/co3ovn
April 16th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I agree with many of both Shirky’s and Mary’s points, which is why I included both. They’re not mutually exclusive.
1)#amazonfail happened because of perceived homophobia — Amazon is deliberately censoring gay titles! Jeff Bezos is a Mormon Prop 8 supporter! — which is and was completely bullshit. The company scores an 80 out of 100 on HRC’s list. They’re not evil.
2)Taxonomies and categories/tags which help people find things can lead to significant errors. Gay does not equal adult. Companies need to be vigilant to make sure good intentions (“Customers who bought this toy train also purchased Sex Toy #4″) doesn’t lead to bad outcomes.
And yes, kind of luxury problem given other injustices in the world.
It honestly reminds me of the Obama flag pin situation.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:41 am
When I wrote about this over the weekend, I figured it had less to do with any malicious intent by the Amazon Corporation and more to do with code that had some unintended consequences and probably some coder’s misperception that anything gay = porn.
The only thing that still bothers me about the whole bit is that this delisting started back in February. Gay authors noted the problem, asked Amazon about it, and were told “tough” at the time.
Is that just an example of a corporation thinking they can do no wrong; that they couldn’t possibly have made a mistake in their computer department? Or was there some middle-management homophobia going on, some opinionated person gaming the system to exclude gay titles?
The pattern-seeking animal in me, the part that wants every bit to have meaning and intent, the part that writes, screams the latter. The part of me that’s been around lo these years and realizes how silly and random life truly is, recognizes that its probably the former.
The same process at work with Amazon#Fail is the same process that makes the Susan Boyle video so epic. First thoughts and final realities are so incredibly at odds it forces you to reconsider everything.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:58 am
“Gay” is the problem. “Adult” is the problem. It’s categorization. It’s compartmentalization. It’s semantics. What if there were no words for gay, hetero, GLBT… what if, what if our identities needed no word to define them? Labels and labels and labels, it’s this endless mircoscopictopicotism. We need to label and categorize and defend everything. We name something and we have to defend it, we have to rage over it, but if it goes unnamed, if it just is, then what’s the worry?
There’s a cow in the field and my son points to it and says, “Look at the dog.” “It’s not a dog stupid, it’s a cow.” I say. And now my son is full grown and angry and confused and working in a slaughterhouse. Who the fuck cares? Language and discourse cause hatred and wars.
Of course we need language. We can’t just abolish something that it’s taken centuries for us to imagine. But we can realize it’s just words (words that come from nothing) and they hold no physical meaning or purpose except, of course, when we manifest the nothing with anger and hatred and meaning and purpose.
“Look!” My son says. “It’s a pirate.” “No, stupid. That’s just a guy trying to survive.”
April 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
OK, my rant over. Legit questions: why is there a “gay” appellation at Amazon, and other retailers? Are gay-themed books hard to find otherwise? What makes, say, a piece of literature gay-themed? I’m wondering why they’re not classified along with everything else (romance, sci-fi, mystery, etc.) and only adult/erotica when they’re sexually explicit.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
@MediumHappy: No-one ever contested that things needed to be categorized. The issue was that the categorization here was harmful and inaccurate.
Shirky’s argument was that a perceived problem never occurred. The reality is that the perceived intentions for that problem never occurred – but the problem itself, did.
There are very simple methods around it: Do a better job. And there’s no excuse to do a poor one when you get this kind of attention called to the issue.
I believe this is what John’s saying, in his response in these comments, though I won’t speak for him.
@daveednyc: Yes, this is a luxury problem. But that’s what this conversation is about. It’s not as though dialog is a scarce resource and must only be spent on the small handful of worthy topics. Good perspective check, bad complaint.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
While we’re on the topic of semantics and syntax, I don’t understand Sharky’s phrase “conservation of outrage.” I thought conservation meant: the act or process of conserving or protecting from further decay or ruin, as in “soil conservation.” What, exactly, did the twitterforks have stored up that was unleashed, like a torrent, on Sunday? Or was the outrage newly minted and just converted wrong? The idea contained in the phrase is just too fuzzy-headed. What’s wrong with “misguided outrage”? John liked it enough to re-quote it. Why?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Shirky! I meant Clay Shirky!
April 16th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
@thorsmark:
Wrong kind of conservation.
cf. conservation of energy, the term used in science.
Shirky’s analogy is that many in the mob refused to dissipate their outrage, but rather redirected it. People who were up in arms about Amazon’s blatant and deliberate homophobia, upon being proved wrong, reshaped their arguments to claim that the system itself was inherently wrong.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Mani, I see your point, but there was no dialogue, just a torrent of erroneous complaint. A collective howl of nothing. Meanwhile, the government continues to sell the entire country for a song to corporate interests, and nary a peep from the masses. It disgusts me. But God forbid someone can’t find a book!
April 17th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Okay, so. I know it’s unwise to use my first post on the site to go against the general flow of the article, but I thought people might be interested in this item from AfterEllen.com:
http://www.afterellen.com/node/48877 (useless at tags, me)
Which does perhaps reveal that an injustice did actually occur, after all.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:39 am
@daveednyc: You’re unfairly exaggerating things.
The “collective howl” of tweets on one weekend is definitely not any greater than the continuous uproar of several blogs and publications and artists about other issues you would find more important.
Hell, Amazon didn’t even see it necessary to formally respond to the issue. Fittingly for this conversation, what you’re complaining about isn’t real.
Unless you think twitter is the ultimate barometer of social outrage across all social sectors, including those who don’t use it?
April 17th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
There’s also something called “conservation of lack of outrage.” Once you realize the original thing you weren’t upset about is actually bad, there is great temptation to find explanations as to why the original thing really isn’t that bad.
We’ve all done that as well.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:45 am
1) The glitch occured for several months. Intended or not, this was an issue that needed addressing.
2) Most civil rights battles are both symbolic and substantive. How people view gay people or censor matters to how entrenched other issues are.
3) Most civil rights battles involves humans who are going to make mistake in figuring out what is important and what’s not. Hindsight is 20/20. Bias against gays is not a made up isue whether ot not it is wrong here.
4) How much energy did it cost anyone to bring the issue to light? I would bet relatively little.
5) Outrage serves a purpose. Just like reason does. Both are necessary to a civil rights effort. See the African American civil rights movement for reference. Nothing that gays are doing is new under the sun. It occured with other movements that came before it.
April 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Just for fun, you might want to type in the search term “homosexuality” at amazon and see what comes up it the top results:
1) “For The Bible Tells Me So”
2) “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality”
3) “What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality”
Other fun titles include:
“You Don’t Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is”
“101 Frequently Asked Questions About Homosexuality” Here are the answers to the most often asked questions about homosexuality, fielded by an expert on the subject…and a FORMER homosexual himself.
There also gay-friendly books, but Bible, Bible, Bible…
April 20th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
That “gay” is categorized as “adult” is the real injustice which, in fact, happened.
No amount of spin will change that. Being gay is not just about sex. Yet many people wrongly assume that, based on inherent anti-gay bias.
I’m glad there’s at least a discussion of this very real problem.
May 1st, 2009 at 8:20 am
Not that anyone’s going to read this comment on an older non-screenwriting-related post, but I got a sense of deja vu here when I’d heard about the recent gaff with online Star Wars message boards: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bioware-rethinks-policy-on-homosexuality
May 9th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
It’s just an example of the internet attention span. When an opinion or assumption can be transmitted worldwide in seconds, often the proper research isn’t done. The anonymity makes people more outspoken. Then the whole thing escalates beyond all reasonability. I’ve seen it douzens of times. It’s even bleeding into off-line communication now.