BigShinyThing

Amazon is in deep trouble with the online LGBT commmunity this Easter. The retailer has re-classified as ‘adult’, and removed sales rankings from, a range of books which includes Henry Miller, Anais Nïn, contemporary same-sex romances and young readers’ books which feature same-sex parenting. Cue uproar on social media, with hashtag #amazonfail top trending last night across the whole of Twitter.

Google ‘amazonfail’ for the developing story, or check this nice summary post from the National Post for background. Fittingly, we first heard of Amazon’s actions via author Hari Kunzru, on FaceBook (thanks for the tip!)

Amazon’s first statement claimed that the de-ranking was the result of a ‘policy decision’. However, as we go ‘to press’ (as making a fresh pot of coffee and curling back up in bed with the laptop is referred to, in blogging circles), the bookseller appears to have changed that position. Its updated statement is so tepid and vague (“There was a glitch with our sales rank feature that is in the process of being fixed…”), that we’re guessing the PR agency has taken Easter off, leaving Amazon to crisis-manage for itself. Ouch. Would love to eavesdrop on that conference call tomorrow morning….

Although this story has been picked up by the US-based culture blogs and mainstream press, we’ve seen no mention of it ‘above ground’ in the UK. Maybe UK media journalists are also having a long lie in today, rather than doing their jobs?

Regardless of Amazon’s final response (which needs to be significantly more credible than its efforts so far), plenty damage has been done to the brand, amongst communities which know how to organise, and that understand the strength of collective action. A glimpse of that strength came last night, when, within a few short hours, a word-of-mouth googlebombing campaign successfully dislodged Amazon’s own definition of its precious sales ranking system on Google. An Amazon-critical alternative definition of Amazon Rank now tops search rankings in the US and UK.

Online, the ‘hacklash’ continues: there’s an open call out for an amazonfail logo, to replace Amazon widgets and links removed by site-owners in solidarity with the ongoing protests. Expect more creative activism in the same vein, over the coming hours and weeks. Until, in fact, Amazon actually comes clean, credibly and openly, about what, exactly, just happened. The longer that communication is delayed, the more damage will be done to the brand. Through social media, communities organise and engage in real-time. Brand-owners must respond likewise.

Whoever it was, a few years back, who said we should stop belittling people’s power by calling them ‘consumers’ and start respecting them as ‘amplifiers’, got it so right. We’re going to hunt his book down. But not on Amazon.

[UPDATE 13 April, 15:15. As of this writing, this post is top-ranked on Google UK search for 'amazonfail'. If Amazon and its PR agency do care about social media engagement, we're easy for them to find, and would love to hear from them.]

XDR-TB — extreme (or ‘extensively’) drug-resistant tuberculosis — may well be the next pandemic. Preventable but untreatable, the disease preys on some of the world’s most vulnerable people. A recent survey suggests that amongst HIV-positive patients in Africa, it has a close to 100% mortality rate, and kills in weeks.

Sadly, the emergence of XDR-TB is a product of human error. TB can usually be treated with a course of four standard anti-TB drugs. If these drugs are misused or mismanaged, multidrug-resistant TB (MDRTB) can develop. MDRTB takes longer to treat with second-line drugs, which are more expensive and have more side-effects. XDR-TB can then develop when these second-line drugs are also misused or mismanaged and therefore also become ineffective.

This is Bad News. It is also important news, as the existence of — and need for action on — XDR-TB has been under-reported in the West.

That’s about to change. And you can help.

With the support of the good people at the TED conference, acclaimed photojournalist James Nachtwey has spent the last year traveling the world, documenting the plight of those suffering from XDR-TB.

The images will be unveiled in London on the fly tower of the National Theatre 7-11pm on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th October. A gallery called The Emergency Room will open between October 7th and 22nd, just off Brick Lane. There you can view the photographs, together with an installation which will track their diffusion around the world. A group of researchers from think tank Demos, together with a coalition of artists and designers, will be working in the gallery, exploring new techniques for the distribution of news photography in the digital age.

This is an important project. If you are a blogger or journalist, or can offer any creative, financial or logistic support, we urge you to contact the Emergency Room and have a chat. For our part, BST is providing the team with monitoring and analysis of the project’s influence on online discussion around XDR-TB. Darrell was also asked by Demos/TED to contribute some thoughts on the future of photojournalism to the project blog.