Weev

Amazon Gay Book Removal Was Massive Prank, I Did It, Claims Troll

Amazon Gay Book Removal Was Massive Prank, I Did It, Claims Troll

An online miscreant named Weev is taking credit for this weekend’s fiasco where reams of GLBT books were removed from Amazon sales ranking, sparking a massive online riot. Weev, pictured, says he organized an army of off-shore computer users to make a bunch of fake Amazon accounts and flag all the gay and lesbian books they could as inappropriate. Also, he got several friends with high-trafficked websites to embed an iframe code that made their visitors automatically send the flags without their knowledge. If true, this recent post by a formerly profligate troller provides insight. However, no one can verify Wee’s claims as Amazon appears to have deactivated all the ways he used to ply his prank. It’s hard to trust a professional liar like Weev, even the idea’s plausibility doesn’t speak well for Amazon.