Slashdot Mirror
Jack Thompson vs Amazon?
Zorglub writes "Feeling his book page at Amazon has been harassed by bad reviews, nasty tags, and a user-submitted vomit pic, anti-game lawyer Jack Thompson threatens to sue Amazon if the offending material isn't removed."
This guy is obviously an attention whore, so why indulge him?
Short of slander, whatever nasty stuff someone says about you in a situation like that is fair game. If he doesn't like the attention, maybe he should shut the fuck up and stop making an ass out of himself publically.
1. Jerk writes book.
2. People who hate the jerk play underhanded amazon tricks to sabotage book on Amazon.com
3. Jerk complains to amazon that such tricks are clearly against amazon's rules and asks amazon to remove the offending material, which amazon does poorly or incompletently.
I expected the mesasgeboards there to be filled with "I disagree with what Jerk says, but I respect his right to say it in a fair way", instead it is full of Vigilante Logic such as pointing to Jerk's supposed jerk activities in a vein of "two wrongs make a right" logic criticizing the guy for asking for amazon to play by its own rules.
Sad.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I don't agree with Jack Thompson but I do not see a problem with him expressing his point of view in our culture of ideas. Posting a very gross picture of a kid vomiting and an absurd cartoon does the anti-Thompson no good. Winning a debate does not occur when call someone a "poopyhead" enough times. Though I don't know if Thompson will win this sort of case, but if I found my product page defased in such a manner, I might do the same thing if Amazon were unwilling to remove these sort of items when requested. It hurts Amazon as much as Thompson to have vomit pictures on their website.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Then don't be surpriced to get kicked in the face.
In other words, people as outspoken (disrespectfull) as Jack should not be surpriced to be called upon. He really think he can get away with saying thing that hurt people without retaliation?
Wake up to the world Jack!!
Penny Arcade as been doing Child's Play for a couple of years now. Jack's just got problems. Sure, he's entitled to his opinion, but that doesn't make him right.
It's almost like saying that Intelligent Design is science because it offers an explanation (Jack offers video games and media as an explanation for todays "violent" culture, while culture has actually been more violent in the past).
ID is no more science than any religion. Some of us know that. Some of us also know that life pre-20th century wasn't exactly easy. Life was violent. Mid-20th century made life for people like him much easier.
Life is about perspective, and Americans (myself included) don't have the experience to understand hardships and violence the way people did pre-20th century or even most of the world today.
So, if Mr Thompson is reading this, you might want to give thought to the possibility that we aren't living in a culture of violence, but that we are a violent culture despite your best intentions.
The right to freedom of speech does not mean that you are allowed to say anything you want. It means that the government cannot try to stop you from saying whatever you want. This is meant to protect us from the government going the way of many others and trying to suppress people's beliefs. This does not protect you in such a way that you are allowed to tell other people to go fuck themselves, or to say things that ruin a person's character or reputation. You are still held liable for what you say, which is why you can be sued for slander, and other such offenses.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
At this point, Amazon has three options:
1) Do nothing and get sued.
2) Remove the offending comments and get a reputation for censorship.
3) Remove the book entirely from the Amazon website and don't sell it anymore.
I guess 3) would be the least painful version, and it would also show Thompson that he cannot do business with Amazon AND tell them how to run their website. Good riddance.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Amazon is company. The only reason they might seem "pro-author" is that it happens to be a by-product of being pro-profit...
OK, I have hope for the future of this country... the responses by the "14 year old" were some of the most well thought out responses, and JTs ignorant, 1 liner retorts clearly showed that he isn't on par. It is kind of sad that JT had to try and throw his weight around with "I'm working with Readers Digest and Senators" to try and impress or intimidate the kid. Kudos to the 14 year old for keeping his head on.
NOTE: I'm not sure how the first pic slipped by Amazon,
Personally I feel sorry for the Amazon staffer in charge of reviewing submissions. After hitting Slashdot I don't even want to guess how many times Goatse got submitted, not to mention who knows what else.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
He decided to go on a legal rampage to promote his new book, thinking that by the time it hit the shelves, the nation would be so full of anti-videogame paranoia and bile that they would buy the book on its position rather than its merits. This has worked for politico authors in the past, so it seemed like a sure shot. Jack's publisher probably supported or even helped him draft his "modest proposal."
Unfortunately, in a classic Thompson mistake, he chose to run his publicity stunt in a way that invited people to respond. The response was overwhelming, and those who opposed Jack's particular flavor of moral outrage were able to make his stunt fall flat while being gracious and generous themselves. In the meantime, the legal actions which might have helped sales of the book were being challenged. The intended political pot stirring barely reached beyond the smaller audience of gamers themselves, for whom the message was a non-starter.
In the end, the book only served to damage Thompson more, because it was beamed toward a highly sympathetic audience. Had he managed to create that audience, the book would have done well. (Imagine if he had stayed on the Alabama case and made it into the OJ Simpson Trial of video games.) As it stands, without wealth of pre-existing sympathy for his ideas, people are looking to the book for some justification of Jack Thompson's crusade - as is reasonable to expect from a 200 page book. They aren't finding that justification, because the book was never intended to have substance of its own. It is a symbolic book. People reading it undecided can only see that Jack is a very angry, egotistical, and unreasonable person.
So let this be a lesson to those who would ride the crest of public outrage to sell themselves - when you wipe out, you wipe out hard.
"What interested parties can do is go to this page and leave 1* comments to balance off the fake ones."
I'd propose that instead of doing this, people would actually read the book in question and then leave their rating. People should not leave reviews for books that they haven't read, not even as a form of vigilante justice.
My other processor is big-endian.