Well I just typed terrorist costume and it lists the Obama mask. I’m sick!

disgraceful.
digg & reddit

I think they’ve fixed the review tags (they now relate strictly to costume stuff), but the fundamental issue w/ the search remains. Not clear who’s screwed up: the 3rd party vendor selling the thing, Amazon, or someone else. But classy, very classy.

I was just on their website and also got the Obama mask when I searched for “terrorist costume”.

I sent them an email:
‘When I put “terrorist costume” in a search, one of the results is a mask of PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Barack Obama, who is not a terrorist. This is unacceptable. If you want my continued business, you’ll remove all connections between terrorism and products depicting the Democratic presidential nominee. Please advise immediately.’

They’ve actually already lost my business, but I figured I’d have more leverage if I wrote it this way.

Never used Amazon and now never will. Would rather buy books from local bookstores, even if they’re a few bucks more. Abebooks.com is an excellent source for hard to find and out of print books. Deals with primarily indy bookstores all over the world.

45
In response to JPL9 @ 36 (show text)

I’m on it JPL9 I just left this on the Discussion section of Amazon’s stock blog I voiced my concern in ways that stockpeople understand Money.
Stock pages do not like bad news about their companies.
Please feel free to go there and add anything you want the more comments the more likely we are to scare Amazon.

a listing on Amazon.com, one of the largest and most successful online merchandisers in the world, seemed to come down even beyond the Republicans’ side — for a while anyway. With Halloween just days away, they’re making a bundle off a $49.95 Barack Obama mask.

Which was displayed on the “terrorist costume” page.

You read that right!

(UPDATE: Amazon’s listing seems to have caught itself and deleted the Obama mask from the terrorist page. However, before that happened, The Ticket captured a photo. See below.)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co…..orist.html

Way to build the Corporate good will with the next President. What do you want to bet internet transactions get taxed now! Thanks Amazon

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AAMZN
replyReply
ThingsComeUndone October 27th, 2008 at 5:54 am
46
In response to ThingsComeUndone @ 45 (show text)

Just what you would not expect from a well run company!
prim..@hotmail.com – 6 minutes ago (1 post)
a listing on Amazon.com, one of the largest and most successful …

Sorry the above is the Discussion heading on Amazon’s stock page.

Hey Twolf1 I left these comments at BT’s thread I thought they belonged here.

Linked you to the Amazon Discussion but they get no traffic normally I think I get more hits at the Oxdown Gazzette:)

I just called the Obama campaign to let them know. The volunteer who answered the phone wasn’t aware of it, but she is now and is forwarding that on to the powers that be.

Thanks, twolf1. I just contacted Amazon and told them to cancel my account and why.

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc. projected 2008 sales that may be $1 billion less than analysts estimated, suggesting the world’s largest Internet retailer isn’t immune to a slowdown in consumer spending.

Revenue growth slowed toward the end of the third quarter, “coinciding” with disruptions in the financial markets, Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said yesterday during a conference call with investors and analysts. Annual sales will be $18.46 billion to $19.46 billion, Seattle-based Amazon.com said, versus the company’s July forecast of as much as $20.10 billion.

Amazon.com’s reduced forecast and EBay Inc.’s projection last week for its first quarterly sales decline suggest online retailers won’t be spared the effects of the financial crisis on Wall Street, which has hit retailers going into the holiday fourth quarter. The last three months of 2007 accounted for 43 percent of Amazon.com’s annual profit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..refer=news

Thanks, twolf1. I just contacted Amazon and told them to cancel my account and why.

did/can you do that online, or did you call?

Login to your account and then find the “Contact Us” button. There’s a pulldown menu where you will have to choose “other issues” or something like that.

disgusting

I bet a Swiftboater was behind this or Karl.

Long time Amazon customer here, until today.

Done.

Amazon is listed at the FDL book Club if you want to buy a book is Jane going to pull that unless she gets answers? Is there another online retailer we can turn to?

The left footers will be wearing Sarah Palin.

i just did this search and the mask is off and the search for “terrorist costume” gives nothing BUT suggested under “related searches” are “arab costumes” (which is also abhorrent), and “terrorist” (simply a lot of political t-shirts).

Excellent question.

Emailed Amazon and informed them I will no longer make a purchase. I’ll shope at my local bookstore, owned by a businesswoman in the community that votes Democratic. Not surprising since Democrats value books and knowledge.

I read in The Uprising that when the Amazon call center employees tried to unionize, Bezos simply fired them all and offshored the function. I’ll never buy from that outfit, either. I get all my books from Full Circle Book Store, the only independent bookstore in OKC.

I have used Abe as well. (Get my german books from them). Yet another reason to support local businesses, when possible.

How about anyone BUT amazon.

Jim White, Just did the same on my Amazon account. I love to boycott them. It is a potent public relations and economic lesson all in one.

Why are you all giving Amazon a hard time over this? It seems once this misuse of their tagging was pointed out to them, they corrected it.

Check out the tags for the McCain mask:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ…..st_edpp_sa

Notice one of them is ‘mcsame’. I just added that one. I wanted to check that anyone with an Amazon account can add tags. So what we had here was anti-Obama folks doing what kids do on the internet.

BTW, notice some of the tags for the McCain mask are the same ones for the Obama mask.

I don’t think we should hit Amazon for this. It sounds like they were deceived and NOT behind this. Some asshole made this mask and listed it, the listing got through, and once it was discovered it was pulled. If Amazon was an ideological as people are implying, they’d have left it up. No real story here.

Searching “clown costume” should yield a Bush mask.

So what we had here was anti-Obama folks doing what kids do on the internet.

And amazon is unaware of that kind of behavior? And does nothing to monitor it? Responsibility comes with the business. You have provided no excuse for amazon.

Heck, even a low budget blog like FDL has (((((mods)))) to make sure nothing untoward happens online.

I am sure this fell through their filters, I believe they will change pronto

*crosses fingers*

Lets wait until we here what Amazon has to say its their store still if I owned a store and somebody walked in dressed as a Klansman for Halloween or at anytime, they would get walked out real quick.
If its a prank no problem but lets confirm it with them officially.

OT
Head of U.S. Northern Command has been blathering for 45 minutes (cspan2) & hasn’t said anything yet.

UPDATE: Since this story has been making a buzz on teh internets, Amazon.com has fixed the “terrorist” listing. I wonder if they will issue an apology?

I am POSITIVE amazon did not do this on purpose

I’m not down on them because of the mask situation. I’m all for supporting local small businesses instead of these big corporations that tend to ‘dsicourage’ unions and thumb their noses at basic worker rights.

Could be hard to tell the difference with any certainty between a Klansman and a ghost?

This may give other customers a reason to shop locally and support local businesses and that is a good thing

Doesn’t matter whether it was intentional or not. Fact is they do not properly monitor what goes on on their site. This is, minimally, BAD business practice.

discourage

Pressure works. There was a store in my city that was selling JFK masks for Halloween the year after he was killed. Several of us got together, sent a letter to the store with a copy to the SF Chronicle, threatening to picket. The story made the Chronicle, the mask was withdrawn and that was my first political act in this county. Never looked back.

This Amazon “Terrorist” page still brings up Obama paraphernalia for me. They must allow users to apply any tag they want to any item.

O/T: Body of child found in the Jennifer Hudson Family homicide case. Police have not identified whether the body is that of her 11 year old nephew.

*sigh* My thoughts go out to her and her family

The guy on CSPAN2 General Victor Renuart talked about the new army combat unit that was being assigned to operations within the US. He said it was for use in a radiological, chemical, or biological attack and that it wasn’t for law enforcement re posse comitatus. But he said nothing why it was being trained and equipped to control civilian populations. Later he said that the military was involved with law enforcement along the Mexican border. So really the use of the military in domestic law enforcement in violation of posse comitatus is happening.

In all fairness, one John McCain and one Sarah Palin Mask are under the terrorist tag as well (4 for Obama).

When I search fascist as a tag I get a lot of books by Coulter and O’Reilly and The Obama Nation.

And ya wanna bet that no one from Brookings asks him that Q?

This guy is dumber than sh*t. For example, he talks about natural disasters as if they were something new that the country has never coped with before NorCom.

This sounds like trouble do you have anymore information?

I’m going to stake out a position a little against the flow here. I think this is a bit of a tempest in a teapot. That said, allowing users to apply any descriptor they choose to any item is asking for trouble. I don’t think Amazon is being very smart about this.

Blue Texan’s new post upstairs: ACTION ITEM: Tell WFTV Orlando And Barbara West To Apologize For Biden Hatchet Job

I would ask them and if they said Klansman then out they go.
Amazon needs to hire mods after all if Jane can afford it and Amazon can’t well the company can’t really be profitable then can it?

You got something against tempests in teapots? *g*

See my 27.

Not at all. Sometimes it makes for good tea.

I went to Amazon, signed in, deleted all my credit-card settings and changed my login name to “Fuck U Assholes”.

This is my entry from my list. If you go there, there are a couple of links, one to Glenn Greenwald, who also wrote on this.

383. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibited the use of military forces for law enforcement duties within the boundaries of the United States in the absence of a declaration of martial law. British soldiers exercising such functions in the colonies was one of the proximate causes for the Revolutionary War. It has been a foundational principle ever since that our military is not to be used against its own citizens except in times of crisis. In the 1807 Insurrection Act, this was taken to mean “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” In the 2007 Defense Authorization bill, a section was slipped in written by John Warner (R-VA) and Carl Levin (D-MI) which expanded the situations covered by the 1807 act to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition.” It is this “other condition” which is the problem since this can mean anything and gives the President a blank check to use federal troops for any purpose within the borders of the United States. In the 2008 Authorization Defense bill, the language was refined to permit the use of federal troops in instances of threats to Constitutional rights. This is still vague and in any case Bush in a signing statement rejected even this limitation.
This is not a theoretical discussion. A September 8, 2008 article in the Army Times reports that beginning October 1 an active duty Army combat brigade will be assigned for use within the US. Among its missions are “civil unrest and crowd control.” It is described as the “first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded” and will be equipped with bean bag bullets, tasers, spike strips, shields, and batons. What is important to realize is that this is both a reaction to the gutting of the National Guard (item 48) and a means to suppress legitimate dissent in contravention of First Amendment guarantees.

Heck I was inspired by your 27:)

Do a diary!

I love supporting my local businesses too, Its not an either/or. I needed some speciality items for my kitchen. I check my local merchants, none have it. So then I go on-line and get it.

damn. v. glad to see you all are on the ball and listening to cspan2. it’s one thing to have the pentagon doing all this shit – but another thing entirely to hear it being so calmly accepted.

Hey guys, I agree that this is a problem. I went and look a look and I think (and I could very well be wrong) that it’s the customers who tagged the product.

I did a search on Obama costume and saw the T tag. Sheesh. Disgusting, for sure. But then I clicked on the Terrorist tag. More “terrorist” products came up like a book called Race Against White Supremacy! and at the bottom of the page was a list of customers who tagged products as “terrorist”. There are 308, so odds are that Amazon might be able to trace the little devil who tagged the mask.

Anyway, seems like a follow up is in order!

Oh, sorry Bilbo, I wrote my comment before reading yours!

agreed

I certainly have contacted Amazon to let them know that my holiday shopping options will not include them unless I see an apology and soon. And I was a good customer that thought was shopping with a good company. Come on, reviews and filters aren’t at Amazon?

The problem here isn’t Amazon, it’s the users, because anyone with an Amazon account can add a tag. (I’ve added tags a couple of times.)

I will contact Amazon and ask that they withdraw the mask but I cannot live without them. I just can’t do all the walking required for shopping and don’t know what I would do without Amazon. Of course, I buy online from other places as well but Amazon is a must-have.

I just want to say that it is not Amazon’s fault. And they corrected the problem. When items are listed on Amazon, it is the seller that decides what search words will be used for the products. It is the seller that initiated this, not Amazon. Yes, Amazon needs to monitor the site, but be realistic. It takes a little bit of time to go through all of the listings. And what sane person would be prepared to look for such a listing as this?

The item is also listed as “Democrat Presidential Candidate Barrack Obama Full Vinyl Mask”. To me the use of “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” sez “right wing vendor”.

Barring an explicit apology I will buy nothing from them for upcoming birthdays (3) and XMas.

Maybe file the mask under WINNER losers.

Looking at other Obama masks for sale out there, it looks like some factories dusted off their old molds for “happy negro” masks and just renamed the items as Obama masks.

Of course I’m just a librul blog commenter who wants to stifle free speech!

True, the mask that was tagged was OK, the other masks were way more stereotypical. I don’t think it was the vendor of this particular mask that is the culprit.

Amazon just needs to get off the stick and fix this tag and ban the customer who did it.

I think we are getting carried away here. When you type in a search tag in Amazon you get a list of products under that tag with the tags title. I typed in “freak” and it gave me a list under the heading “freak products.”

Anyone can add search tags to an item in Amazon. Someone obviously found the Obama mask that is sold there and added a bunch of tags to it including the word “terrorist.” It seems that this mask was the only item in all of Amazon that was tagged as “terrorist” (because it is a reasonably unlikely tag for products) so when you type in the search tag, the mask alone pops up under “terrorist products.” Neither Amazon, the mask company, or anyone else can stop this from happening. There are not enough site monitors in the world to keep up in real time. It is a public site that lets people add to it’s functionality based on an honor system.

Some wingnut had no honor. That’s about the extent of this story. How could bloggers who spend time on KOS and YouTube not recognize this phenomenon of public sites being open to pranks? There is no sense creating a tempest in a teapot here. Amazon got punked. People complained. Amazon acted to remove the problem. What more do we want?

Agree, Abe books is great, as is alibris.

If you want German books try globalbooks.de. Free shipping over 50 Euros. It takes a few weeks though. Seems they wait until they have a pile of books, then ship via container to MSP, from there it is sent UPS. Very efficient and good prices on German school books, novels, etc.

(800) 201-7575 is the 800 number for Amazon.com.

How to find Obama’s biography on Amazon? Just do a search for anti-christ! http://www.amazon.com/gp/taggi…..8;search=1

Boycott Amazon.com. I urge everyone to call and cancel your accounts. lets not give Amazon a single penny of your business.

I just called and asked them to completely purge my account.

Amazon needs to issue a public apology to set things right.

Eric

For the most part, the tags for the items at Amazon.com are made by the users, not the staff. Anyone with an account can tag any item with anything they want. Amazon has nothing to apologize for.

Blame the republican fear/hate machine.

Hilarious!

I will NEVER use Amazon.com again.

I am writing to inform them and I’m sending out this article and asking everyone on my email list to join me.

Screw that company.

It is amazon tagging system that is inherently flawed and lends itself to misuse. It is their responsbility to have some sort of over sight in place. Don’t try to make excuses for Amazon. This happened on their website so they are responsible.

boycott amazon.com. take your business elsewhere. Demand public apology.

Seems like this story is a little too close to the truth for most people on this site.

No worries… Obama supporters must have a good influence on Amazon, the keywords are now “democrat / landslide / winner”… However, McCain/Palin masks have derogatory keywords attached… they better get on the ball.

tpkelly – I am sure you will also find it disgusting if Mccain is listed a a liar, someone who made up the five year in prison thing.

Amazon is going to pay thru the nose for this. Trust me, they will be filing for bankruptcy soon.

If you do a general search for “terrorist costume” you get a McCain mask– ericdallastx is right– it’s an inherently flawed system that can be abused, but I don’t think Amazon should be blamed– I work for a large company and believe me, it’s hard to regulate ALL of the content that is submitted, no matter how stellar your monitoring resources are.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb…..0&y=0

Isn’t that like blaming a blog for the comments left by readers?

I agree. You can’t blame a blog or site for the actions that their users/readers take.

What you can blame them for is a lack of inactivity/mobility on an issue once they’ve been notified.

It’s ridiculous to think that someone could know absolutely everything that’s going on everywhere at every moment.

Just e-mailed Amazon and cancelled my account and told them why. I will be shopping elsewhere. I usually spend $1000 (a least) a year. Hope they get the message.

I just looked it up, and it now has a McCain mask when you type in “terrorist costume.”

Amazon is in process of buying AbeBooks. Buy with confidence?

Yeah… see my comment above, which covered this.

Folks,

Lets get this straight, Amazon is is not a blog site it is a publicly traded company. Amazon is selling products that suggest that a sworn in United States Senator (a public servant) and a presidential candidate is a terrorist.

I am not so sure that Amazon stock holders will be thrilled when they learn about this. This will destroy the public image of this company.

And please don’t try to make excuses for Amazon like the tagging is done by users etc. It is their website, their technology and their servers that is promoting this hate. They are 100% responsible for this. If they can’t manage their website then maybe they should not be in the business of selling products online. End of story…