Did a little research and some people seem to think that guy was a troll (i.e. that he was claiming credit for something that happened without his help).
Well, looking over bryant's response, it looks like he has revised it to basically admit that the substance of weev's claim is essentially feasible. IOW even if weev is not really the perp, this may be substantively how it was done.
I haven't been following the issue and only really found out about it last night. I've seen reports this afternoon that people have been getting their sales rank back. weev's post says they've disabled the customer response code that made the sales rank sabotaged possible, basically reversing it.
I can still reproduce some of the problems, though. However, I can now find the book Heather Has Two Mommies, which people were reporting as "missing" early in the blow-up.
I'm leaning at this point towards a combination of (1) Amazon's policies and site development + (2) someone gaming the system somehow, in the way described or by some similar route.
In any case, it does not look to me like a case of Amazon making an executive decision to lock out sales ranking data on Gay and Lesbian material. It would be, at this point in time, a suicidal business decision.
Yeah, it could be a case of someone creatively illustrating their theory of how someone would accomplish it, and (sort of) why. Even when i first heard about it, my first response wasn't outrage, it just seemed too 'trollish' to me.
Not specifically to lock out queer material, but certainly Inappropriate To Middle America Material. (By whoever's narrow definition of Middle America you're using.)
Yes -- Amazon made themselves vulnerable by creating a response system that would tend to respond to the moderately conservative viewpoint of average America.
When they instead need to respond to the moderately liberal viewpoint of literate, book-reading America.
It's like when the Religious Reich tried to boycott Disney World over its allowing "gay days" at the park. Disney looked at how many presumed radical fundamentalists visited the park each year vs. how many gay people and decided they could live just fine with the boycott. :)
Seriously. The number of people congratulating him for supposedly pulling off an anti-gay cyberattack because he had a post flagged on craigslist is horrifying.
Yeah, and I'm really trying hard not to get cynical about those twits. Fuck it, they're twits, and he's a huge asshole. Reminds me of David Niven on the streaker: "How sad that the biggest laugh that gentleman has ever gotten in his life came from stripping off and revealing his shortcomings." Dude basically has no way of getting attention other than boasting about being an asshole for something he didn't even do. Yeah, that's....wow. That's exponentially more pathetic than being a homophobic Christofascist troll. Also, how stupid are those jerkoffs? This has been going on for two months and benefited fundies. Is that something you'd boast about? Or applaud?
This has been all over my friends list in the last 24 hours, and now (on day two) more information - much of it conflicting - is out. The following post has a lot of links if you're in the mood to read up on it. :-)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:07 pm (UTC)http://bryant.livejournal.com/672165.html
I don't personally know enough about coding to say one way or the other.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:20 pm (UTC)Have you checked Amazon lately? It looks like some of the stuff is coming back up on searches, so maybe they're trying to fix the problem?
Although I can still reproduce some of the issues (especially the difference between searching All Departments and searching Books).
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:10 pm (UTC)Also this, although certainly, the tagging part could well have been gamed. But it seems to have been based in large part on metadata, not tagging.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:20 pm (UTC)In any case, it does not look to me like a case of Amazon making an executive decision to lock out sales ranking data on Gay and Lesbian material. It would be, at this point in time, a suicidal business decision.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 12:41 pm (UTC)When they instead need to respond to the moderately liberal viewpoint of literate, book-reading America.
It's like when the Religious Reich tried to boycott Disney World over its allowing "gay days" at the park. Disney looked at how many presumed radical fundamentalists visited the park each year vs. how many gay people and decided they could live just fine with the boycott. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 10:30 pm (UTC)http://blackbird-song.livejournal.com/122026.html