Removing titles from the Logos platform
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Matt Bennett said:
However, we’re currently working to tighten these controls so the Logos platform is always a safe place for going deeper in the Bible.
The process has been been automated and they are working on improving it. However, mistakes are bound to be made and some titles will accidentally slip through. When that happens, users have the option to report this to Logos.
I would also suspect that Logos will be able to learn from these mistakes and fine tune their selection process.
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Robert M. Warren said:
Portnoy's Complaint
I definitely want a clean Logos experience. Some books will be obvious by their title: SB gone.
Some will slip thru. I have no idea of 'Portnoy's' ' content. I remember it being in bookstores decades ago, + know who the author is by having seen its cover those many years past, but that's it.
I believe we will have to report some volumes to Logos.
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Larry Farlow said:
Again, why are we being asked to do their jobs for them?
You don't have to if you don't want to. They're just telling how to handle it if you do find a title objectionable enough to want it removed.
You don't have to spend your time searching the store for titles to report or posting repeatedly in the forums. You certainly don't have to spend time capturing and posting screenshots of cover art.
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Ronald Quick said:Matt Bennett said:
However, we’re currently working to tighten these controls so the Logos platform is always a safe place for going deeper in the Bible.
The process has been been automated and they are working on improving it. However, mistakes are bound to be made and some titles will accidentally slip through. When that happens, users have the option to report this to Logos.
I would also suspect that Logos will be able to learn from these mistakes and fine tune their selection process.
Exactly.
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Put another way, they don't have a clear urgency to take care of this, so stop being so hard on them and leave them alone.
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Kiyah said:Larry Farlow said:
Again, why are we being asked to do their jobs for them?
You don't have to if you don't want to. They're just telling how to handle it if you do find a title objectionable enough to want it removed.
You don't have to spend your time searching the store for titles to report or posting repeatedly in the forums. You certainly don't have to spend time capturing and posting screenshots of cover art.
Thanks, Kiyah.
Have joy in the Lord!
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Ronald Quick said:
The process has been been automated and they are working on improving it. However, mistakes are bound to be made and some titles will accidentally slip through. When that happens, users have the option to report this to Logos.
I would also suspect that Logos will be able to learn from these mistakes and fine tune their selection process.
Ronald, that is a good summary. Let's show them some grace as they work to improve things.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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I agree it's kind of silly that we're being asked to report titles to them. Perhaps they truely don't (or didn't) understand how big of a mess they had on their hands. I took the one category of Harlequin romances as a suggestion for them to take care of. My initial search of the Logos library showed 1,148 titles/matches for the search term "Harlequin". Most of them were clearly not useful in anyway whatsoever for "research" that a Christian would/should be doing. Last night, I finally recieved a reply to my email in which I suggested they search for "Harlequin". This morning, a search for "Harlequin" returns 16 matches. Several are of the "Christian romance" category, and some are non fiction.Larry Farlow said:Again, why are we being asked to do their jobs for them?
In the email, it was explained:
[quote]I appreciate how this is a poor reflection on what we are aiming to do here at Logos and want to reiterate that we are taking the matter seriously. I have gone through and pulled these resources from the platform. So, to answer your questions directly, the answer to both is no. These resources were never intended to be put on the platform as they are not acceptable and no, they will not be remaining on the site.
I will state it is a very manual process to reverse these and while I’ve aimed to get them all there may be some that are missed. I will keep searching for anything with the same search term and keep addressing until they are all removed.
I'm grateful that things titles like this are not accpetable and will not be left on the platform.
I think their response has been slow - perhaps because they did not realize the massive numbers of offensive titles that had been uploaded by the previously ungated automated process. However, I appreciate that perhaps they're starting to understand the mess on their hands. And that it it requires manually removeing each title (one at a time?)
I can't help but think that these are not merely oversights by the publishers and imprints, but rather the actions of a nefarious person(s) wanting to sow chaos for a Christian company that did not have their digital doorway sufficiently secured.0 -
John Klink Jr said:
In the email, it was explained:
[quote]I appreciate how this is a poor reflection on what we are aiming to do here at Logos and want to reiterate that we are taking the matter seriously. I have gone through and pulled these resources from the platform. So, to answer your questions directly, the answer to both is no. These resources were never intended to be put on the platform as they are not acceptable and no, they will not be remaining on the site.
I will state it is a very manual process to reverse these and while I’ve aimed to get them all there may be some that are missed. I will keep searching for anything with the same search term and keep addressing until they are all removed.
I'm grateful that things titles like this are not accpetable and will not be left on the platform.Perhaps now that you've gotten [another] direct response in addition to the three responses from Logos employees on this thread that they don't find these titles acceptable and that they are working to address the issue, perhaps both you and others will, as many of us on this thread have suggested, extend them some grace as they seek to address the issue, and refrain from throwing a fit in the forums whenever you find an objectionable title. Can you take their word that they take the matter seriously, can you stop assuming negative intent or apathy on their part? Can you take their word that it's a manual process to remove titles and some may slip through or get missed? Can you give them the benefit of the doubt that you would want to be given?
John Klink Jr said:I agree it's kind of silly that we're being asked to report titles to them.
Consider it similar to the "Report Typo" feature in Logos, or the ability to report Bugs in the forums. No, it is not my job to identify bugs or spot typos, and I certainly don't want to spend significant amounts of time doing that. But doing so does help them make the software better, and I don't report bugs or typos when I don't feel like it or don't have the time to do so, because it's not my job. They're not requiring me to report those things, but they have given an avenue to do so if I so desire. If you see a title you don't think should be on the platform according to their stated policy (hopefully not just according to your own personal preferences) report it if you want to, don't report it if you don't want to. Nobody's forcing you.
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EastTN said:
I would hope that Christian scholars would not, as a general rule, directly quote explicitly pornographic material. But I would note two things. First, there are a number of Christian works that address pornography and describe aspects of it (e.g., objectification of women, implicit or explicit violence, transgression of traditional sexual norms, prevalence of various fetishes, unrealistic representations of sexuality, etc.) that certainly suggest the authors have done original research. Second, pornography has become a recognized area of study in the broader academic world, and much of that work is not shy about quoting from the source materials.
It may not be a perfect analogy.
Yes, exactly. Display of pornographic practices (and violence) would be offensive to any Christian reader who studies the named areas in scholarly and academic resources, whereas display of occult practices, in general, is not.
Proof:
These are just a few examples from scholarly works in my library.
You won't find anything similarly graphic in studies of pornography and related areas.
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On behalf of the Logos team, I apologize for allowing illicit titles on our platform and for the time it is taking for us to get everything down. We want logos.com (and our apps) to be a safe place to study Scripture, and we’re committed to removing titles that don’t meet our standards, as outlined in our Distribution Philosophy.
Today I want to update you on a few things:
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First, we are actively removing inappropriate titles from our platform. We are treating this issue as a major priority, and our team is being thorough to review titles manually and electronically. Thank you to everyone who has sent products to titlereview@logos.com. We’ve responded to each email within one business day, and we’ll continue to respond to every title sent our way.
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Second, we know our existing workflow failed at keeping illicit titles off the Logos platform, so we’re rebuilding our process to better vet and filter content.
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Third, we have removed and will continue removing illicit titles from the Print Library Catalog. This was a disconnect in our systems that required coordinated effort with our developers, and we will soon be able to remove titles from the Print Library at the same time we remove them from the platform. We’ve made significant progress here.
As a side note, we’ve updated the FAQs in our Distribution Philosophy to answer how publisher content gets to our platform.
Again, thank you for your patience as we work to get this right. We don’t take for granted your trust in us, and we hope to regain your trust as we improve our processes in order to bring you a broad selection of relevant, high quality content. We’ll continue to share updates in the forum thread here.
VP, Content Products
Logos
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Matt Bennett said:
On behalf of the Logos team
Thank you, Matt, and the Logos team for cleaning this situation up.
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Thanks so much Matt.
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Thank you, Matt.
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Yes, thank you Matt.
Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection. - Colossians 3:14
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Yes, thanks Matt. I've read this and now the statement on the Logos website. I'm glad you're working this diligently and appreciate your efforts.
Can you please explain why Cleis Press was one of the publishers Logos chose to partner with? They are described as:
"...an American independent publisher of books in the areas of sexuality, erotica, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, fiction, and human rights."
This is not a general publisher with some problematic titles but a publisher dedicated to erotica and LGBTQ titles.
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Larry Farlow said:
This is not a general publisher with some problematic titles but a publisher dedicated to erotica and LGBTQ titles.
LGBTQ titles are clearly of interest to Christians as it is a highly contested religious issue. I have known both liberal and conservative pastors who have gone to great lengths to educate themselves on the issues.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:Larry Farlow said:
This is not a general publisher with some problematic titles but a publisher dedicated to erotica and LGBTQ titles.
LGBTQ titles are clearly of interest to Christians as it is a highly contested religious issue. I have known both liberal and conservative pastors who have gone to great lengths to educate themselves on the issues.
Agreed. Non-erotica LGBTQ titles are relevant to me and other Christians, even those who don't take an affirming position. I do not believe Logos should remove a title simply on the basis that it has LGBTQ-related subject matter. Erotica, straight or LGBTQ, should be removed, but simply having an LGBTQ label should not be sufficient grounds to have a title removed.
I hope Matt considers this feedback going forward as he endeavors to bring broad and relevant content and does not succumb to pressure from a loud few who think God ordained them to control what everyone else can buy from Logos. Whether we're affirming or non-affirming we may want to engage the issue from an informed/educated stance, and I would like all of us to have the freedom to chose to do so, and to do it with Logos. Logos makes studying these issues so much more powerful and efficient and I don't want to always have to go to a different, less feature-rich reader.
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Matt Bennett said:
Today I want to update you on a few things:
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First, we are actively removing inappropriate titles from our platform. We are treating this issue as a major priority, and our team is being thorough to review titles manually and electronically. Thank you to everyone who has sent products to titlereview@logos.com. We’ve responded to each email within one business day, and we’ll continue to respond to every title sent our way.
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Second, we know our existing workflow failed at keeping illicit titles off the Logos platform, so we’re rebuilding our process to better vet and filter content.
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Third, we have removed and will continue removing illicit titles from the Print Library Catalog. This was a disconnect in our systems that required coordinated effort with our developers, and we will soon be able to remove titles from the Print Library at the same time we remove them from the platform. We’ve made significant progress here.
Thank you, Matt, for this update and thanks to you and your team for all of your hard work in addressing the issue.
Hopefully everyone will use the specific email you've provided going forward, as it seems to be the most efficient way to get the information to your team and to get a response.
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Thank you for this update. Are you able to speak to why it took so long and why it's seemingly only being treated as a priority now? We saw a large scale purge of sexual books only in the last 48 hours, compared to the previous 7 weeks when this was initially brought to your attention. What changed in the last two days, other than our continued pressure?
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Clearly there are many different views on this. In my case trust is destroyed, and this clear communication was a good, but late, start, the first I read was in no way reassuring to me; I will now wait and see if trust can be restored.
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Kiyah said:
...does not succumb to pressure from a loud few who think God ordained them to control what everyone else can buy from Logos.
Could we all try to dial some of this rhetoric back just a little bit?
- We've all been rather loud, on both sides.
- Without a representative poll of all Logos users, it's impossible to know who the "few" are.
- I don't recall anyone actually claiming a divine ordination in this matter.
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As promised in my post on March 20, here’s an update on our progress in removing inappropriate titles from the Logos platform.
We have checked, tested, and verified our filters as well as our manual processes are working properly from now on to prevent illicit titles from being added to our platform. We have also completed automated and manual reviews of questionable content that’s currently available on the platform, removing all the inappropriate books we’ve found. From here on, we are confident that our processes will correctly identify and remove content that doesn’t adhere to our Distribution Philosophy.
Thank you for your patience as we have worked to fix our content filtering and review processes. While we can’t guarantee another illicit title won’t end up on the Logos platform, we feel certain it will be rare. Our team remains committed to regularly checking our filters and to reviewing and responding to each email that comes through titlereview@logos.com. Please keep sending us anything you come across.
We don’t take for granted your trust in us, and we hope to regain your trust as we improve our processes in order to bring you a broad selection of relevant, high quality content.
VP, Content Products
Logos
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Appreciate your update, and all the hard work of the team there!
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Last update was mid April and it is currently May 12th, 2024. I haven't seen any other news on updates for the removal of the pornographic, or graphic material.
What publishers or distributors have now been removed from Faithlife/Logos because of this; and what proper measures is Faithlife/Logos done and continually doing to prevent this from happening again without having to depend upon those of us whom you provide this Christians Bible Application to.?
I do appreciate all of your help that Faithlife/Logos have done for my studies with the Bible. I'm praying for the highest level of Christ like integrity.
Lev 11:44; Lev 19:2; Lev 20:7; 1 Peter 1:16 because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”
I trust the LORD. Man, as well as in myself, I have less than trust in. And that is where accountability comes in.
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Lonnie Liston said:
Last update was mid April and it is currently May 12th, 2024. I haven't seen any other news on updates for the removal of the pornographic, or graphic material.
What publishers or distributors have now been removed from Faithlife/Logos because of this; and what proper measures is Faithlife/Logos done and continually doing to prevent this from happening again without having to depend upon those of us whom you provide this Christians Bible Application to.?
I do appreciate all of your help that Faithlife/Logos have done for my studies with the Bible. I'm praying for the highest level of Christ like integrity.
Lev 11:44; Lev 19:2; Lev 20:7; 1 Peter 1:16 because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”
I trust the LORD. Man, as well as in myself, I have less than trust in. And that is where accountability comes in.
I think the update from mid April says it all, so I'm not we should expect a further update.
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Here's your update: They're back to selling pornographic books https://protestia.com/2024/05/11/logos/
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@Matt Bennett, would you please address what Protestia released on 5/11/2024? Thanks!
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Yes please. Can you also look at your messages, as we've reached reached out many times for comment and clarity from anyone in your organization and no one has chosen to get back to us. Thanks
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Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We're actively removing the items that violate our distribution policy and looking into how we can continue improving our publishing process.
VP, Content Products
Logos
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