Web retailer Amazon.com came under fire Sunday and Monday when Twitter users noticed that the sales rankings for gay and lesbian-themed literature had mysteriously disappeared Sunday afternoon.

Gay romance author Mark Probst discovered gay-themed books such as ‘Transgressions’ by Erastes and ‘False Colors’ by Alex Beecroft were more difficult to find as a result of the sales rankings removal Sunday night. Twitter, a popular social media site, exploded with posts marked with the hashtag ‘amazonfail,’ and many users urged a boycott of Amazon.

The online retailer provoked further backlash when it released a series of conflicting statements about the rankings. According to The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital blog, Amazon.com released a statement that blamed a technological snag Sunday afternoon.

‘We recently discovered a glitch to our Amazon sales rank feature that is in the process of being fixed,’ the statement said, according to the Wall Street Journal. ‘We’re working to correct the problem as quickly as possible.’

A different statement released by the Amazon customer service representative who responded to a complaint from Probst sparked further outrage within the online community Sunday.

‘In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude ‘adult’ material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists,’ the representative said, according to Probst’s blog.’ ‘Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.’

BookSquare blogger Kassia Kroszner wrote an open letter of protest to Amazon, defending the equal inclusion of gay literature on the website and, like Probst, called the statement hypocritical.

‘Gee, I can buy a book on training fighting dogs (something so offensive my stomach hurts just looking at the cover image), but specific types of human relationships are suddenly taboo?’ Kroszer wrote in a post.

However, according to an emailed statement sent to The Daily Free Press late Monday evening from Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith, the ‘glitch’ did not apply solely to gay and lesbian-themed titles, but to 57,310 books in a range of categories such as erotica, heath, mind and body and reproductive and sexual medicine.

‘This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloguing error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection,’ the email said. ‘Many books have now been fixed, and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.’

Nieman Journalism Lab, an online news feed project funded by Harvard University, ‘tweeted’ about the Amazon controversy at 3:39 p.m. Sunday afternoon, which soon had 1,838 hits within six hours of the initial post, Nieman Lab Assistant Editor Zachary Seward said. Seward said Amazon’s initial two-sentence statement was irresponsible because Amazon did not clear the air when it had the chance.

‘I think any reasonable person is just going to say, ‘I want to hear both sides of the story before I pass judgment,” Seward said. ‘So given that, Amazon had that opportunity and just blew it.”

Boston University Spectrum spokesman Franklin Cappadora said he does not believe that Amazon’s mistake will go unnoticed. Spectrum is a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendergroup at BU.

‘I think it’s a little ridiculous, and they’re obviously not going to get away with this,’ Cappadora, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said. ‘Gay-themed literature has every right to be sold on the web just like everything else. . .”

However, Cappadora said Spectrum normally does not take political stances and most likely will not mobilize against Amazon.