PSA: Methinks Amazon's algorithm has gone squiffy (Bugera content)

usedtobe

I wish they'd stop pestering me with emails about the amp they won't sell me, then...

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

Exactly that - they are within their rights to refuse to sell, for any reason. Except if they explain the reason and it is discriminatory - if the bakery hadn't given the reason they would not have broken the law.

The irony of course being that gay marriage is still illegal here- so they were prosecuted for basically agreeing with the law as it stands.

(I agree with gay marriage and think we should have it, but that whole thing was a mess. It seems a bit weird that you can be prosecuted for agreeing with the law. Especially when the law has no intention of changing.

"Look, we're on your side really, we prosecuted that bakery!"

"Can we have gay marriage then?"

"Don't push your luck!")

clarkefan said:

Really? Isn't that why that bakery in Belfast got done for, cos they refused to sell a cake to someone because he was gay?  (hope I'm remembering that right)

EricTheWeary said:

That's what I never understood about the Belfast case, essentially if they had said nothing they would have been within their rights but because they wouldn't sell it for a gay marriage it was an act of discrimination.

Not quite. The cake had a slogan advocating for legalising gay marriage (we don't have gay marriage here), and they refused to bake the cake with the slogan on it. They'd have baked him a cake with no slogan.

It was actually a lot more complex than both sides gave it credit for, I think.

Plus I mean I think that's the case with most discrimination, and why it's very difficult to prove and very difficult to stamp it out- the person doing the discrimination only has to have the wit not to give a reason (or to invent a legally-valid reason) and it's very difficult to prove otherwise.

usedtobe

I don't know if the facts of the gay cake case were reported here. I never knew until just now, so thanks for that!

Dave_Mc

No problem. Not sure how accurately it was reported here either (I don't have an inside track or anything, just what I read in the papers and saw on the news), but if you want to check my working it should still be on the BBC website under the Northern Ireland news section- the bakery was called Ashers which might help you to search for it (there are multiple stories about it on the website and I don't want to bury you with links ).

Of course the other big massive irony of the whole thing is that, if gay marriage had been legal here, there'd have been no need to ask for the cake to be baked either, since you don't normally need a cake with a slogan asking for something to be legalised which is already legal.

(Granted, he might have wanted a cake with a different slogan which they still may have disagreed with, I suppose, but possibly less likely since they seemed happy enough to serve him apart from the slogan thing.)

hywelg

If Amazon allowed you to place the order then you could argue a contract has been agreed, however it never lets you get to that point, and I'm guessing at that price point it never will.

ThePrettyDamned

Dave_Mc said:

No problem. Not sure how accurately it was reported here either (I don't have an inside track or anything, just what I read in the papers and saw on the news), but if you want to check my working it should still be on the BBC website under the Northern Ireland news section- the bakery was called Ashers which might help you to search for it (there are multiple stories about it on the website and I don't want to bury you with links ).

Of course the other big massive irony of the whole thing is that, if gay marriage had been legal here, there'd have been no need to ask for the cake to be baked either, since you don't normally need a cake with a slogan asking for something to be legalised which is already legal.

(Granted, he might have wanted a cake with a different slogan which they still may have disagreed with, I suppose, but possibly less likely since they seemed happy enough to serve him apart from the slogan thing.)

Although they still may have wanted to infringe on the Christian baker's freedom of speech by asking for something else pro-gay. 

I mean, come on, there are plenty of other bakers. I'm not up for religious people discriminating but if they are not comfortable with it because of their beliefs... 

Maybe I just don't like confrontation, but I still see it as an act against freedom of speech. It makes me sad that they can't even admit why they wouldn't want to bake the cake - the people would have asked why and they'd have had to say, "because". Yeah. Freedom. 

Thread derail! 

I have tried for these bugera amps loads, it never works. I remember their copy of the dual rec was up for ages for about two hundred quids and I tried to buy it every day, many emails sent etc. Annoying! 

Sassafras

usedtobe said:

I don't know if the facts of the gay cake case were reported here. I never knew until just now, so thanks for that!

I will always remember it as "the gay cake case" now.

usedtobe

You're welcome!

Dave_Mc

ThePrettyDamned said:

Dave_Mc said:

No problem. Not sure how accurately it was reported here either (I don't have an inside track or anything, just what I read in the papers and saw on the news), but if you want to check my working it should still be on the BBC website under the Northern Ireland news section- the bakery was called Ashers which might help you to search for it (there are multiple stories about it on the website and I don't want to bury you with links ).

Of course the other big massive irony of the whole thing is that, if gay marriage had been legal here, there'd have been no need to ask for the cake to be baked either, since you don't normally need a cake with a slogan asking for something to be legalised which is already legal.

(Granted, he might have wanted a cake with a different slogan which they still may have disagreed with, I suppose, but possibly less likely since they seemed happy enough to serve him apart from the slogan thing.)

Although they still may have wanted to infringe on the Christian baker's freedom of speech by asking for something else pro-gay. 

I mean, come on, there are plenty of other bakers. I'm not up for religious people discriminating but if they are not comfortable with it because of their beliefs... 

Maybe I just don't like confrontation, but I still see it as an act against freedom of speech. It makes me sad that they can't even admit why they wouldn't want to bake the cake - the people would have asked why and they'd have had to say, "because". Yeah. Freedom. 

Thread derail! 

I have tried for these bugera amps loads, it never works. I remember their copy of the dual rec was up for ages for about two hundred quids and I tried to buy it every day, many emails sent etc. Annoying! 

Yeah, that's true. I guess it depends on whether they were anti-anything-pro-gay, or anti-gay-marriage- ironically, for example, I think Northern Ireland was the first part of the UK to legalise same sex civil partnerships, so there may well be a lot of people who have no problem with that, but just with calling it marriage? Not sure.

It's actually really complicated, and I'm not actually 100% sure what I think (except that both sides in it kind of annoyed me by oversimplifying a pretty complex problem to try to win the court case ). If they'd refused to sell him a cake (or any merchandise) because he was gay I'd totally agree that's discrimination.

But refusing to print a slogan promoting an issue you disagree with? Especially when that's not the main part of your business (it might be different if a sign or poster printer refused to do it, though even on that I'm not sure )? I'm not sure that that's quite the same thing. I dare say they imagined when saying they'd ice cakes that most of the requests would be "happy birthday"

I think I'm with Patrick Stewart on it, really.

Sassafras said:

usedtobe said:

I don't know if the facts of the gay cake case were reported here. I never knew until just now, so thanks for that!

I will always remember it as "the gay cake case" now.

I think that's what it was actually called by the media

usedtobe

I think you're right. It's not like me to have an original thought! 
As for slogans on cakes, if it were me, I'd put any old nonsense on there.. It's just a bloody cake, ffs..

TimmyO

It's clearly some sort of sharp practice - rather than fix or remove the erroneous listing they have reduced its price during the life of this thread (if you put it in your 'save for later' list you get alerts when the price changes) 

Dave_Mc

usedtobe said:

I think you're right. It's not like me to have an original thought! 
As for slogans on cakes, if it were me, I'd put any old nonsense on there.. It's just a bloody cake, ffs..

haha

And yeah. Though I dare say you'd have to be careful- not in this specific case, but say if someone asked you to ice something which was potentially libellous? Could you be held partially liable as the icer?

usedtobe

Good point. Never thought of that. I'm pretty sure we've got a legal expert or two on here who could probably clear that up.. 

Dave_Mc

I only thought of it when I replied to you   It may well be a non-issue- I'm not a lawyer. But as you said, someone on here may well be able to clear it up.

mart

Meanwhile, Amazon have woken up and the Bughera is back up to a sensible price and marked as out of stock.

for now.

BloodEagle

the dream is over

Sassafras

usedtobe said:

I think you're right. It's not like me to have an original thought! 
As for slogans on cakes, if it were me, I'd put any old nonsense on there.. It's just a bloody cake, ffs..

I'd have just put a great big marzipan penis on there.
A subtle statement that's not open to legal challenge.

usedtobe

Haha.. Legend!