British Expatriate Network

Racist Comments Shut Down Wal-Mart Web Movie Suggestions
Friday, January 06, 2006
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Wal-Mart Leads Holiday Playing Field
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is shutting down the system that creates movie recommendations on its shopping Web site after it linked a "Planet of the Apes" DVD to films about famous black Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr.

Wal-Mart said Thursday it had removed what it called the "offensive combinations" from a walmart.com page advertising a boxed DVD set, "Planet of the Apes The Complete TV Series."

Under a "similar items" section, the DVD set's page linked shoppers to four films about the lives of King, actress Dorothy Dandridge, boxer Jack Johnson and singer Tina Turner. Wal-Mart later altered the page to link with television show DVDs.

The world's largest retailer said the software that generates links for shoppers from one movie to others of similar interest would be shut down. All cross references would be removed as soon as technically possible until the system can be fixed, Wal-Mart said.

Bill Wertz, a spokesman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based company, said it wasn't yet clear how or when the technical problem arose.

"We're still looking into it," he said.

Wal-Mart moved swiftly after a link to the page for "Planet of the Apes" began circulating on the Internet.



"We are heartsick that this happened and are currently doing everything possible to correct the problem," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said in a statement.

"Walmart.com's item mapping process does not work correctly and at this point is mapping seemingly random combinations of titles. We were horrified to discover that some hurtful and offensive combinations are being mapped together," she said, adding that the company was "deeply sorry that this happened."

"To further illustrate the bizarre nature of this technical issue, the site is also mapping movies such as 'Home Alone' and 'Power Puff Girls' to African-American-themed DVDs," Williams said.

A documentary about surfers, "Riding Giants," links to the same list of seemingly unrelated fantasy films as the King biopic, including "Polar Express" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."




This PC nonsense will only end when all speach / views / opinion/writing / fiction are stiffled and we are unable to communicate with each other for fear of OFFENDING SOMEBODY .




courtesy fox news .

http//www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,180822,00.html

So lets get this straight John, you think that WalMart trying to avoid a potentially racist issue, albeit inadvertent, is 'extreme PC'?
Surely this is an example of Walmart doing the right thing - correcting an error.
I'm sure if the white englishmen of a certain age were being linked to something offensive you would like it correcting.
Certainly Fox's Bill O'Reilly gets easliy offended by thngs and if say the website linked one of his books to Al Frankin's 'Liars..." I'm sure he's squeeling.

I agree, this isn't "extreme PC", it's a screw-up which would be offensive to anyone.

I could list countless examples of people who would be offended by such coincidences.

I had a similar problem once where a listing I was promoting on Amazon was linked to some soft porn. I wrote to them immediately and they fixed the "bug".

I'd be offended too. At least link to some proper porn. "Naughty Nurses 15" or something.

Rob S

It has all gone abit extreme you must admit, People call me limie and I am not out finding a lawyer to sue someone.

When does it all get too much? Surely the people with the brains to realise these links might have racist overtones also have the brans to realise it isn't Walmart's official viewpoint.

If you want to offer an interactive service, you need to understand that some people's interaction will be offensive. Use a disclaimer. If you want to censor all comments/links to fit your view of acceptibility, just give up on the interactive thing. Walmart particularly are on shaky ground with the censorship thing. They have they whole religious thing going -will they be blocking links between Christian and Pagan films next?

Thats the trouble Monster "when does it all get to much"

People may tell a joke or make a silly remark and get in gob loads of trouble for it.
It was just a joke or off the culf remark. Now people walk around like they are walking on egg shells. It makes the hunt for the real biggots even harder.

Things like you cannot display a countries flag incase it upsets someone from another country is all a load of Sh*t. What next ban national athems, no gold or silver medals, cuz someone may feel left out.

Come back good old fashion common sence

The law should be changed that if you sue and loss, you pay the others cost, will stop 90% of these stupied cases coming to court.

People tend to look at sueing as a get rich scheme.

As a footnote to this, I had cause to look something up on the babies R us /Amazon website.
Baby stuff, as you might imagine.
The usual, "other people who bought this also bought this...." line was at the foot of the page.
The selected item?
The motion picture soundtrack for the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" shock

By way of possible explanantion, I had, earlier in the day, looked up the lyrics to 'timewarp'... cookies anyone?