In response to the controversy over de-ranking of more than 57,000 books on its site, Amazon released an unusual statement today.
The online bookseller’s initial response to critics crying #amazonfail had been, well, terse: the problem was a “glitch.” Details were not forthcoming.
But Monday afternoon an official statement was out, and it was in such non-corporate lingo that I couldn’t quite believe that it was the real, on-the-record company response. Yet it was.
This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.
There was more, of course, but I’d like to pause and contemplate this. To apologize for de-ranking titles that appeared to be classified as excessively erotic, Amazon reaches for a vocabulary word meaning “inept” and came up with “ham-fisted.”
Erotic? Ham-fisted?
Cancel the linguist. Call in a Freudian.
