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Amazon Censorship Expands
Nom du Keyboard writes "Recently word leaked out about Amazon removing titles containing fictional incest. Surprisingly that ban didn't extend to the 10 titles of Science Fiction Grand Master Robert A. Heinlein that incorporate various themes of incest and pedophilia. Now, it seems that the censorship is expanding to m/m gay fiction if it contains the magic word 'rape' in the title. Just how far is this going to be allowed to proceed in relative silence, and who is pushing these sudden decisions on Amazon's part?"
If they think books with any one of these things in them are "bad", just wait until they find out about that "bible" thing that contains pretty much *everything*.
At what temperature does a kindle burn?
First off, it's their store, and it should be their decision to sell or not sell any particular book.
Secondly, if they are indeed pulling titles off people's Kindles like last time, I say: "Go Amazon, and by all means extend the scope of your ban". All the sooner, people will wake up to the fact that they don't really "own" that DRM-ridden content after all.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4861353319
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B003X0XDZI
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B000GCGM3Q/
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0007TFACM/
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0046X7RJ4/
and many other charming titles....
Religious extremists aren't limited to the muslim world, it just takes other forms and actions and a lot of the effects seen in the US of that is that anything related to sex is banned but it's OK to sell weapons, show how to abuse someone (as long as it isn't sexually) and glorify war.
So I'm just waiting for the Heinlein books to disappear too along with any books critical of religions - especially the books critical of christianity and the scientology movement.
In the final stages even books related to science will disappear and only creationism books will be permitted to remain.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
A fairly large part of Amazon's business practice, aside from efficient JIT inventory/shipping, is customer profiling and recommendation(an extension of the classic retail upsell, only every recommendation isn't for a magazine or service plan, and beaten over your head!). Given their fair expertise in this area, and generally commanding lead in online bookselling, it seems unlikely that this is a case of "poor, poor, Amazon, haunted by the lawsuits of angry parents whose offspring's attempt to search for sparkle-ponies dumped them into the M/M Rape BDSM section". Surely they can trivially keep team pathologically sensitive from finding anything they don't search for, and wave the free speech flag to cover the rest.
Thus, one is inclined to suspect that(since books about incest, rape, or whatever are presumably sold for a profit just like any other book) somebody inside or outside the company is being pushy for reasons ideological rather than financial, and that they are being surprisingly quiet about it(unlike say, the tremulous morons at the Parent's Television Council, who are explicitly ideological; but ontologically incapable of being quiet). Who exactly that might be is rather puzzling...
Or is that not considered fictional?
The best known example from there is the story of Lot, his stupid wife who turned into salt by looking back on the devastation, and his daughters who got him drunk and had sex with him to bring him male heirs.
And after expunging all un-Germ^H^H^H^HAmerican art from society we can move on to getting rid of those people who we find to be untermensch.
Thank you Amazon for getting the ball rolling :-)
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Well, actually first they came for George Orwell.
And lots of people spoke up, so they promised not to do it again.
I guess this time they decided to pick on an easier target.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"Cooking with Rapeseed oil"
If you don't like it, you are free to open your own multi-billion dollar company on the internet.
Just make sure you don't hit any of their patents.
This is an interesting (if not really new) phenomenon that seems to be on the rise.
The threat of censorship in liberal democracies isn't as much from governments as it is from corporations which have a monopoly on their market. In addition to Amazon, look to Apple, Google, Walmart, Comcast, Facebook and... I'm sure y'all can think of some others. These companies have a kind of power we haven't seen since the days when there were only three TV networks. Probably even more.
The one really, really bright star in all of this? I'd say: Wikipedia. It can be manipulated by these megacorps to some extent, but such manipulations usually can be rectified by singular individuals.
Well, that is until net neutrality goes away and then perhaps opens the door for traffic shaping... Then perhaps Comcast, bizarrely, will bring on the new totalitarianism.
So, is it only censorship if they carried a title, then dropped it? Or is it also censorship if they never carried the title at all? Is Borders guilty of censorship because they don't carry the "Big Busted Shemales" magazine holiday edition? How about your local library? Is it censorship if your local grocery store doesn't carry the Oxford English Dictionary?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H. L. Mencken
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
who cares? If you don't like it, don't shop there.
It is, however, useful to be informed in the first place.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
The free market is the ultimate form of democracy where dollars are your votes
If one person can cast more votes than another person, it isn't democracy.
Free Martian Whores!
It is also not censorship.
Why do corporate apologists keep saying this crap? Censorship does not mean "action by the government," it just means that materials deemed inappropriate are not allowed to be published.
All they'll do is open the door for alternative online book sale sites catering to specific tastes.
You are assuming that such a website would make economic sense; this is not necessarily true. Part of what makes Amazon so successful is that they can cater to a lot of unusual interests -- the economics of catering to a single interest are entirely different. It may very well be the case that there are just not enough people interested in these books for a store that caters to their interests to remain in business; it may take a business that can compete with Amazon, but does not censor its store, to cater to those interests.
Palm trees and 8
Sigh... for the millionth time, yes, it is censorship, it's just not government censorship and therefore not illegal censorship (in the US). It's still censorship. That's what the fucking word means, for Christ's sake.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
I'd recommend reading up on Walmart and the effect that their music buying preferences have had on popular music. They're a huge retailer of music and refuse to carry music which has a warning label on it. It gets bizarre at times like when they refused to carry Nirvana until they changed the names of some of the songs. Didn't actually change the songs, just the names, dropped the warning and were able to be carried. Most artists aren't that lucky and have to compromise their artistic integrity in order to live up to Walmart's rules or release an alternate version.
Check out the second paragraph http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3_2.html
No, it isn't banned. We the state don't ban anything. You just won't be doing business in this town.
I much rather have state censorship. The state can be voted out. Amazon can not.
So, you are free to publish a book that upsets the powers that be, you just won't be finding a publisher or bookstore to sell it. But freedom is ensured as long as you don't try to exercise it.
This guy would also defend "No jews allowed" or "Whites only" on private businesses. The dream he chases? I want none of it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
>>>It's bad when the government does it, but good when corporations do it, yadda yadda.
NOT what I said.
You got an F in reading comprehension, I bet. It's bad when either of these organizations do it, but the difference is that corporations don't have the power to suck money from my wallet against my will, throw me in jail for years, send out goons to give me a Rodney King-style beating, or execute me on the electric chair. Only the government holds the monopoly to do that.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
...corporations don't have the power to suck money from my wallet against my will, throw me in jail for years, send out goons to give me a Rodney King-style beating, or execute me on the electric chair. Only the government holds the monopoly to do that.
When the corporations write the laws and fund the politicians to get them enacted, this distinction is meaningless.
If you need examples, just look at some of the 'IP' laws enacted across the globe in the last 20 years or so. In many cases, parts of the legal text are exactly as written by the 'IP owners' lawyers.
Corporations have the power to get governments to do on their behalf all the things they can't do themselves.
>>corporations don't have the power to suck money from my wallet against my will,
Compulsory tax on blank media, passed by the gov't at the behest of corporations
>>throw me in jail for years,
RIAA/MPAA exploiting the laws they paid politicians to write to fine/jail people "guilty" of downloading copyrighted material.
>>send out goons to give me a Rodney King-style beating,
Foreclosure procedures often include using police to do the dirty work of corrupt banking establishments.
>>or execute me on the electric chair
Not yet, but they can certainly have you "silenced" or "suicided" as it were.
So, while the force is directly applied by government entities, if the government is just another branch of the corporations (it's a shared resource they like to use/abuse), then the corporations are the ones actually exercising that force, even if there's a badge or a robe that indicates government affiliation.
Wow, you should probably read the comments in a thread before just replying to one. Here's a summary:
It was postulated that the free market is the ultimate form of democracy where dollars are your votes. Against that argument was that if one person can cast more votes than another person, it isn't democracy. The rebuttal was that as long as everyone has a voice it is a democracy, just not necessarily a fair one. Thus, my comment that poor and homeless people do not have a voice is within the spectrum of the idea that the free market is a democracy where dollars are votes. Obviously if you have no dollars, you have no votes and therefore no voice.
Thanks for playing though!
By the way, if you don't understand how the current political landscape is run by money and corporations rather than actual "votes" then I feel sorry for you.
All you are doing is giving reasons why the US Government should only exercise the powers *specifically* enumerated by its Constitutional Law. If the constitution was enforced the US Congress would not have the power to bailout AIG. Or power to give handouts to "stimulate" General Motors. Or give special favors to Microsoft by taxing all non-windows PCs/laptops/pads.
.
>>>they can certainly have you "silenced" or "suicided" as it were.
Okay. Please cite an example of this where a corporation committed murder & was not punished by the law. ----- I can guarantee you the government has done it FAR more often. Over 150 million people were murdered by their OWN governments during this past century. Have corporations ever mass-exterminated that many people? ----- Even the US Congress deprived approximately 10 million of their property, homes, money, and freedom simply because they had grandparents that were born in Japan. Name one corporation that has ever committed that level of atrocity as done by that ONE building of 535 men in Washington D.C.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How DID the congregation react?
About 1/3 knowingly nodded, about 1/3 got wide-eyed & looked at each other, and the remaining 1/3 looked pissed that he would say such a thing. I think he got letters after that one.
So, yeah, about 2/3 of the people had not really read the Bible, which I expect to some extent (who knows how long they have been following this faith), but was also revealing to me.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.