Is Amazon Homophobic??
I recently had one of my works that features a description of a gay sex act taken down from the Amazon store because an employee decided that it was “offensive”. It’s not clear why the Amazon employee were offended. The work is for sale on both iTunes and Barnes & Noble, so it’s clearly not out of step with contemporary community standards. And I didn’t think that anyone could still be shocked to learn that gay men sometimes have sex.
None the less, the work has been banned from the store, and Amazon is now threatening to suspend my account and remove the rest of my work. So in an attempt to understand Amazon’s definition of “offensive content”, I decided to take a look at some of the books that they do approve of.
The following are all actually for sale on the Amazon store:
•Books encouraging the white race to rise up and dominate the “lesser” races: e.g. "The White Power Manifesto"
•Books by Nazi apologists claiming that the holocaust was a hoax e.g. "The Six Million: Fact or Fiction?"
•Books promising to “cure” homosexuals though a dangerous and discredited psychological procedure. e.g: "Reparative Therapy of Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach"
•Straight erotica in which virgin women are repeatedly gang raped by demons until they learn to enjoy it and fall in love with Satan: e.g. "Heaven or Hell: MMMF, Group, Bondage, Domination (Ravaged by Demons Book 1)"
•Straight Erotica in which women are kidnapped and trained as sex slaves: e.g. "Captured By Him - Sold to the Master, Book 1: A BDSM Master-Slave Romance"
•Straight erotica in which women are gang raped by mutant monsters: e.g. "One long night with FOUR AGGRESSIVE CREATURES leaves innocent and curvy Sasha STRETCHED, SPENT, and PUMPED FULL"
So to sum it up: Amazon does not find books advocating white supremacy to be too offensive to sell. Amazon does not find a book claiming that the murder of 6 million Jews was faked to be too offensive to sell. Amazon does not find books advocating a damaging and discredited procedure for “curing” homosexuality to be too offensive to sell Amazon does not find straight erotica about the gang rape and sexual enslavement of women to be too offensive too sell
However, Amazon does consider a relatively mild piece of gay erotica, in which a guy gets a blow job from the bully who tormented him in high school, to be so deeply offensive that the story must be blocked from the site and the author threatened with having his account terminated.
Seriously?
Is it still 2016? Because the Amazon censors seem to be living in 1950.
Keith
None the less, the work has been banned from the store, and Amazon is now threatening to suspend my account and remove the rest of my work. So in an attempt to understand Amazon’s definition of “offensive content”, I decided to take a look at some of the books that they do approve of.
The following are all actually for sale on the Amazon store:
•Books encouraging the white race to rise up and dominate the “lesser” races: e.g. "The White Power Manifesto"
•Books by Nazi apologists claiming that the holocaust was a hoax e.g. "The Six Million: Fact or Fiction?"
•Books promising to “cure” homosexuals though a dangerous and discredited psychological procedure. e.g: "Reparative Therapy of Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach"
•Straight erotica in which virgin women are repeatedly gang raped by demons until they learn to enjoy it and fall in love with Satan: e.g. "Heaven or Hell: MMMF, Group, Bondage, Domination (Ravaged by Demons Book 1)"
•Straight Erotica in which women are kidnapped and trained as sex slaves: e.g. "Captured By Him - Sold to the Master, Book 1: A BDSM Master-Slave Romance"
•Straight erotica in which women are gang raped by mutant monsters: e.g. "One long night with FOUR AGGRESSIVE CREATURES leaves innocent and curvy Sasha STRETCHED, SPENT, and PUMPED FULL"
So to sum it up: Amazon does not find books advocating white supremacy to be too offensive to sell. Amazon does not find a book claiming that the murder of 6 million Jews was faked to be too offensive to sell. Amazon does not find books advocating a damaging and discredited procedure for “curing” homosexuality to be too offensive to sell Amazon does not find straight erotica about the gang rape and sexual enslavement of women to be too offensive too sell
However, Amazon does consider a relatively mild piece of gay erotica, in which a guy gets a blow job from the bully who tormented him in high school, to be so deeply offensive that the story must be blocked from the site and the author threatened with having his account terminated.
Seriously?
Is it still 2016? Because the Amazon censors seem to be living in 1950.
Keith
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Siavahda
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Feb 11, 2016 11:39PM
This is bizarre, I've bought books with gay erotica from Amazon dozens of times, there's plenty for sale there! Is there any way to question the decision or have some other Amazon person take a look at it? Because my first thought is that it's a one-off homophobe throwing their weight around, it can't be Amazon policy - like I said, there's so much gay erotica available for the Kindle, it just doesn't make sense at all.
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My thoughts exactly. I think I hit one homophobic employee.The problem is that there's no appeals process. I've repeatedly contacted the division in question and Amazon's legal department. And I've specifically told them that I think I'm experiencing anti-gay discrimination. And the only response I ever get is a form letter that basically says "We don't have to explain our actions. Your work is offensive. We may be banning your account."
I'm not sure what I'm going to do. If Amazon does ban all of my work from the store, my career is over.
It's extremely frustrating. Amazon is too big and too powerful to behave this erratically. It can't be the case that work that is perfectly acceptable one week will get your account banned the next. It can't be the case that one homophobic employee can destroy my career, and the rest of Amazon doesn't have to care.
Amazon might as well change their motto to "We treat authors like shit. Because we own 90% of the book market and you've got nowhere else to go. "
That is so unbelievably appalling. I've heard of other people having trouble with the form letters too though... Hm. Have you tried contacting them through the instant messenger chat thing? If you go to the Contact Us page, you can select dropdown options until you get to an instant messenger where you get to talk to a real live person. I've used it many times, though not for an issue like this. I would select the 'Digital Services' tab, then 'Kindle Ebooks', then 'something else'. At that point it will let you write a brief summary of the problem, and then give you a larger space for a more detailed explanation, I think. At which point they'll connect you to a customer service person.You'll almost certainly be connected to someone who can't help you at first, but they'll pass you around between departments until you're brought to the attention of someone who, hopefully, can help. I think that's your best bet.
If that doesn't work then you/we/someone should start a Change.org campaign or something, because I'm pretty sure you're not the first author to have similar problems and you're absolutely right, Amazon cannot continue like this.
Thanks Siavahda! I'll try that.I wonder if there's some way to find all the authors that Amazon has pulled this kind of weird bullshit with? Is there somewhere on Goodreads I could post about that?
Keith
You're welcome, I hope it works!Hm, maybe there's a Goodreads group somewhere? If not, you could start one! 'Troubles with Amazon for Authors', or something. (I'm sure you could come up with a better name for it!) Other than that, there's the KDP forum over on Amazon?
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