This isn’t the post I had planned for today, but it’s a good time to bring up something that troubles me—the bullshit term “Family Friendly”

Whose Family…?

I roll my eyes at any site, seller, or store that promises “Family Friendly” because what they really mean is: “We’re going to be absurdly cautious about what we sell because we’re scared parents will burn down our website/store if their kid accidentally (or accidentally-on-purpose) comes across something they don’t want the kid to see.”

My question is: “Whose family are they talking about?”

If “Family Friendly” means “Parallel to the values I’m teaching my child”, then their shelves should be stocked wall-to-wall with nothing. Anything they sell is going to be contrary to someone’s values, right?

I mean, for a radically religious family, books that validate other religions might be unfriendly. For a racist family, books that show people of any other color—or every other color— in a positive light might be unfriendly. For vegan families, “The Big Meat Cookbook” might be unfriendly. And on and on…

So whose family are they talking about? Mine? Yours?

Well, no.

In the end, the term “Family Friendly” has nada to do with my family’s values, or your family’s values, and everything to do with the store owner’s (or the shareholder’s) family values.

A “Family Friendly” Amazon = Asshat Strategy

I love Amazon to the bottom of my heart, but they have screwed the pooch with this wide-spread filtering that disappears books from search results by globally omitting tags that could have adult-content, like gay writing just because it’s tagged “gay”.

Again: Whose family are they being friendly to?

Dear Amazon,

What if I’m gay and I have a child? Or what if my child is gay? How friendly is it that you’ve essentially hidden us from public view, like something shameful. You’ve erased stories and resources by, for, and about people like us from your results because you want to be “family friendly”.

Oh wait, maybe you didn’t mean MY family…you must have meant other people’s families. Or maybe you don’t consider us a family at all? Maybe that’s what you’re saying. Well how fucking friendly is that, Amazon?

So who’s next? I mean, why stop? You’ve made your search results safe (ha!) for some people’s children at the expense of other people’s children, so why stop at “gay”? Take out books tagged “African-American”, “Muslim”, “Canadian”. Make your catalog safe (ha!)  for everyone’s children. Strip it down until there’s nothing left, you asshats.

Your angry, angry fan,
Crystal

P.S. This is mind-blowingly two-faced, btw. You don’t want (allegedly) adult-content books to be happened-upon in your searches, but you don’t mind profiting from them. You didn’t remove any of these harmful (ha!) books from your catalog, you just don’t want people to accidentally find out that you sell them. Nice.

P.P.S If you’re going to censor, don’t be a pansy about it. Go all the way. Drop them. Then feel the wrath.

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P.P.P.S. Stop parenting my kids

I don’t have kids and won’t have kids. I’m going to spend the rest of my life NOT being a parent. But I think often about what kind of parent I would have been, and I would surely have been pissed by someone else deciding what my kid can and cannot see.

Guidelines? Yes, please. Censorship? Uh, hell no, thanks.

In spirit, Amazon has cast a vote in favor of lazy parenting. Through flagrant database abuse and under the failed label “Family Friendly” they’re trying to make it easy for me to let my kid shop unattended and unmanaged. As if.

Because some of Playboy’s stuff is tagged “Photography” and not “Porn” and wasn’t being filtered. At all. So much for filtering content that Amazon and its site visitors considers—or doesn’t consider—adult content.

Which is why it’s not Amazon’s job (or their site visitors’) to shield my imaginary kid from content.  That’s MY job. And I resent the inference (implication? whatever…) that they—or any random site visitor—knows what is appropriate for my kid-that-I-don’t-have.

And another thing…

How far did they think this through?

Forget their bullshit-censoring-of-content-for-children-as-if-they-should-be-a-part-of-making-that-decision-when-they-shouldn’t. What about good ol’ fashioned sales sabotage? This is a business blog, first and foremost, so let’s not miss that part.

Amazon is filtering all their listings for everyone based on tags that any site visitor can edit. In addition to being a lazy ass way to filter out the adult content, it could make it stoopid easy for competing authors to bury each others books…or even nastier, make a statement by cataloging the oppositions’ books somewhere inappropriate.

Once, (and only once) I visited an indie bookstore that put Buddhism texts in the “New Age & Mysticism” shelves instead of with “Religion and Religious Practice”, which was full of books on Christianity and only Christianity.

Yeah, like that.

So who’s going to police the tagging to prevent abuse by competitive parties? Is Amazon going to hire a tag review army for the monumental, unresolvable, perpetual tug-of-war between taggers? Or are they going to step way way wayyyy out of bounds and decide once and for all, for all of us, what’s appropriate content and what isn’t?

Lazy. Unbalanced. Hazardous. Dangerous.

I hope to hell that this is a belated April Fool’s Joke.