the alleged perpetrator is 'weev', one of the people featured in that NY Times article that everybody was talking about awhile back, "The Trolls Among Us."
How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
11–20 of 113 posts
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#12Um, did anyone else need to confirm that they were an adult before viewing the post? Rather funny no?
Yes, I started counting the words, thinking there was some misrepresentation of the title, then realized that was not what the title was referring to...
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#13True or not the real fascinating thing was the fallout, not the catastrophe itself. Watching the #amazonfail twitter real-time search results was incredible last night. Every few seconds there would be dozens of tweets covering it, and as I watched I could see how the story was progressing. Initially there was outrage, then the reaction from Amazon that it was a glitch created the #glitchmyass hash, and then there were links to alternative listing areas for the de-listed books. It was impressive to see how rapidly this evolved, on a holiday no less.
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#14Do you guys think this is true?
This explanation is far more plausible than the idea Amazon suddenly got all squishy about showing certain titles.
Amazon has generally followed the tradition of booksellers and libraries in the free world, erring on the side of inclusion, with regard to controversial topics. Given that most of the 'excluded' books were hardly controversial at all -- even anti-gay activists rarely expect major retail chains to drop gay-themed works -- a 'glitch' or hack/prank was always more likely than an intentional Amazon decision.
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#15If you're going to harass a group of people it's a lot more tasteful to target one that isn't already persecuted.
Targeting a group like this makes it more believable. I mean, if Amazon was banning books about 'successful entrepreneurs', most people would have thought it was a bug in the site, not malicious intent.
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#16How many of these do we have to stare down before the internet punditry learns to take three deep breaths before clicking "post"? Remedial reporting here would have saved a lot of faces from a lot of egg.
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#17Do you guys think this is true?
It wouldn't surprise me.
Let's face it, Amazon's system probably doesn't require large numbers of users flagging something before it takes automated action, because the average book just isn't going to get that much attention. So combine a likely low barrier to removal with a CSRF hole that lets you trick people into flagging whatever you want them to, and... you get exactly the result people are raging about all over the internets.
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#18I'm mainly wondering if he can get his face sued off over this.
I've got NO doubt that this is going to have a noticable negative impact on Amazon's profits. Not world shaking, but more than enough to make the lawyers angry.
As another commenter mentioned, he's been in a NYT article, with his face and full name displayed. Amazon won't have any trouble finding him.
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#19Wow. Anyone who owns, or hopes to own, an internet-based community of any type should read this, just to get a sense of the sophisticated methods and the lengths trolls will go to. While I have to hand it to this guy for deviousness and persistence, he is, after all, the "enemy" as far as the Web Site Owner is concerned.
It boggles the mind that anyone would do this, but they evidently do, and you may well have to defend against it.
Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code
#20I'm mainly wondering if he can get his face sued off over this. I've got NO doubt that this is going to have a noticable negative impact on Amazon's profits. Not world shaking, but more than enough to make the lawyers angry. As another commenter mentioned, he's been in a NYT article, with his face and full name displayed. Amazon won't have any trouble finding him.
I should certainly hope not.
While he's certainly mischievous and possibly malicious, he didn't actually do anything that I think should be illegal. He merely used Amazon's flawed system against them, at considerably personal expense. He hacked them, in other words.
I can't agree with his aims in this case but you've got to hand it to him really - you don't have to like trolling in general to admit that was an amazing troll. It shouldn't be illegal and he shouldn't be able to be sued. Society would be worse for it, counterintutive as it may seem.