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Books With "Questionable Content" Being Deleted From ebookstores In Sweeping Ban

Nate the greatest writes "The Kernel started an uproar last week when they 'discovered' that the Kindle Store and other ebookstores sell adult content in the erotica category. None of the content is actually illegal, but it is icky enough that the major ebookstores decided to respond by removing anything even vaguely questionable. Unfortunately, they went too far, resulting in an act of censorship the likes of which we haven't seen since Paypal went after the indie ebook distributor Smashwords. The Daily Mail reports that WH Smith went so far as to shut down their website with the promise that it won't reopen until all self-published titles have been removed, and according to BBC News, B&N is also deleting content. Numerous authors have reported on KBoards that Amazon and B&N have removed far more than just the titles that feature questionable content like pseudo-incest; they appear to be running keyword searches and removing any title that mentions innocuous words like babysitter, sister, or teenager. And they're not the only ones; there's a new report that Kobo has jumped on the ban wagon as well."

38 of 548 comments (clear)

  1. Shade of Grey (lol) by Chronus1326 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who decides? Isn't this a Shade of Grey here? Think that book will get banned as well, as popular as it is? (never read it and never will, but am aware of its cultural significance)

    1. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who decides? Isn't this a Shade of Grey here? Think that book will get banned as well, as popular as it is? (never read it and never will, but am aware of its cultural significance)

      LOL. Only men erotica get banned. Didn't you got the memo? Feminism is the official doctrine of the state; women good, men bad. Simple as that.

    2. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who decides?

      Sex, one of the Four Horsemen of the Info-pocalypse. Thin edge of the wedge stepping stone to more politically motivated types of censorship...

    3. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by killkillkill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Who decides?

      The owner of the store. They don't have to have fair or consistent rules. Deal with it or start/support a new store with like minded people.

    4. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who decides?

      The owner of the store. They don't have to have fair or consistent rules. Deal with it or start/support a new store with like minded people.

      It's a little frustrating how true this is. Also a little frightening when you think about it. These huge companies have more power to control our speech than the government does because they are private entities. All you have to do is get a few big companies together to make a decision and you can enact a de-facto censorship regime by locking most out of the market.

    5. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by jythie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The part that is more frightening is how small groups (almost always religious and conservative) seem to have disproportionate sway over how those companies behave. It does not help that people who support free expression and adult material are so easily shamed into not fighting back... but even when they do, the response they get can be pretty different. Tell Amazon you are upset because they have naughty stuff and they go banning. Tell Amazon you are upset because they are deleting content and they are pretty dismissive (I actually tried a while back).

    6. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by Chalnoth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're confusing feminism with right-wing conservative nutjobs. Feminists generally prefer sex-positivity, meaning they don't want any ban on erotic fiction of any sort. While there are some feminists that do want to ban pornography, believing it is degrading to women, in my experience those are a minority among feminists. Many of the feminists I know, for example, would like to see brothels made legal everywhere (and regulated to prevent exploitation of the sex workers).

    7. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by bradrum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Typical Slashdot bullshit. If I told you to start your own Apple or Microsoft you'd piss and moan about monopolies, regulations, ip laws, predatory business practices that would get in your way. But you have no qualms about telling someone unhappy with Amazon, B&N, etc... you would say "start your own book shop", "start your own health care company", "start your own hospital", or "start your own fucking space program" etc.... without even a CLUE that the predatory business practices and monopoly powers of the big boys of other industries are the same or worse than for technology companies.

    8. Re:Shade of Grey (lol) by Patch86 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's worse than that, even. WH Smith was moved to take action against its legal stock at the demand of the Daily Mail, more or less on its own. The Daily Mail is arguably the most extreme right-wing of the British press, and represents (via it's readership) a largish minority (but definitely a minority) of middle-class people who like a bit of moral outrage with their breakfast. Smiths will have taken its action to avoid losing a smallish but non-trivial portion of their customer base.

      So, we have a situation where any organization which lacks scruples and represents a non-trivial number of customers can indirectly control the country through commerce.

      Scary bananas.

  2. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fahrenheit 451?

    1. Re:Hmmm by sir-gold · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's just like Fahrenheit 451, except without all the trouble of actually tracking down and burning the books. You just sit down at a computer, type a few commands, and you are done. No more pesky history books getting in the way of your world domination

  3. Tired of this nonsense by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Every time we complete some sort of cycle, discover a new tribe, a new people, new nation or continent, new media, new format, new distribution whatever, there's always this stupid witch hunt. -Oh no a person is saying/writing/portraying things I don't agree with, this must stop right now. Democracy is bad. Censor that shit right away! -burn all those books.

    To make it worse there's this pseudo fanatical craze to get rid of nudity with a passion but violence? not so much. somehow nudity is worse...reminds me of the MPAA rating system. Sure you can show blood, but the naked human body? are you out of your mind?!

    This is always the problem with controlled distribution, formats and media. Someone decides what's best for you.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    1. Re:Tired of this nonsense by clickety6 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To make it worse there's this pseudo fanatical craze to get rid of nudity with a passion but violence? not so much. somehow nudity is worse...reminds me of the MPAA rating system. Sure you can show blood, but the naked human body? are you out of your mind?!

      In the US, maybe. In a lot of European countries, at least, there is a more relaxed approach to nudity and a greater abhorrence to depictions of violence.

      --
      ----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
    2. Re:Tired of this nonsense by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Kiss a pair of tits in a movie and it's X-Rated.

      Chop 'em off and it's PG-13.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. As I warned about previously by koan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is what digital books are going to get you , censorship, on the fly redactions and corrections to appeal to current political climates, and a simple refusal to sell anything that in anyway displeases the power elite.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:As I warned about previously by SirGarlon · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And yet several of my family members eagerly bought Kindles in spite of me carefully explaining this concept. I'm afraid the battle is already lost.

      --
      [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
  5. Misplaced outrage by Huntr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Store owners are free to carry whatever books they want. This is a market opportunity.

    Stop bitching and open your own store for these kinds of books (e-erotica? oof...). Evidently there's some space to make money here.

    1. Re:Misplaced outrage by OhPlz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Store owners are free to carry whatever books they want.

      Not really. The town I live in has prevented several "adult" book stores from setting up shop here. The usual tactic is to claim that what they want to build isn't allowed by the zoning. Those sort of establishments have to set up shop on the other side of the river.. next town over.

    2. Re:Misplaced outrage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Store owners are free to carry whatever books they want. This is a market opportunity.

      Stop bitching

      Free speech goes both ways.

    3. Re:Misplaced outrage by Bengie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When lots of book stores decide to all pull similar books, that's not a freemarket, but collusion to censor.

  6. 50 Shades? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So are they going to refund the billion dollars they sold of 50 Shades of Gray? Or is the difference not in content but in sales?
     
    lol captcha is "modest"

  7. Reading the Guardian earlier... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I myself like Japanese anime and culture, and have read a few doujinshi which feature young anime characters in sexual situations, but...

    >The National Crime Agency warned on Sunday that books appearing to legitimise child abuse "might feed the fantasies of paedophiles and in some cases encourage child sexual abusers to commit contact offences".

    I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit.

    Maybe we should ban first person shooters too because it might legitimize murder and encourage people to commit actual offences...

    Anyone who can't tell the difference between an actual, human person and fictional character(s) are no different than the ones who abuse children, or murder, or rape women...

  8. Re:Facts please. by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Rape, incest, bestiality are some of the things being targeted. That isn't exactly just bare breasts. Although you raise an issue noted in this bit from the BBC story:

    "We outlaw snuff films, child porn and, increasingly, revenge porn, because actual people are harmed during their production," wrote PJ Vogt on OnTheMedia.org.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  9. And people ask me why I do not like eBook by aepervius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, not that i am into erotica, but I dislike being told what I am being allowed to read by private company.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
    1. Re:And people ask me why I do not like eBook by DeathToBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And I'd guess that private company doesn't like you telling them what they are allowed to (or must) sell.

      Honestly, if you're worried that there isn't enough erotica available then you're not that interested in erotica. Try google. The puzzle for me is that anyone would pay for it.

      --
      Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
    2. Re:And people ask me why I do not like eBook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To be fair, getting to read about sex AND have proper grammar and punctuation is a rare treat.

  10. And this is Why I Don't Buy Ebooks and Readers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    After Amazon pulled the first revokation, I decided that ebooks were no longer a viable option. Then Paypal decided to go after Smashwords (who's doing the censoring here? The god damn fucking Church - any god damn organized religion. Well kill em all and let god sort em out is beginning to sound more and more effective as it'll immediately reduce the worlds fucking population and it'll get rid of all of the hypocritcs and folks that think their religion is better then anyone elses. Sorry fucktards but I believe that religion is the curse of the Empire for the express purpose of keeping us Humans out of space since we're to damn dangerous for the rest of the universe to handle. "Danger!! Human!! High Explosive. Do Not Touch!!"

  11. Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Erotica and romance novels are two completely different categories. Romance novels usually have some sort of plot or story that would function just fine without the smut. Erotica (aka plot? what plot?) would suffer as a story with the smut stripped out because it takes up the bulk of the content.

    Romance is what women use to masturbate whereas erotica is what men use. That's been my experience of what the definition of the two are when it comes to policy.

  12. Re:Well it is about time by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When having to choose between siding with a pedophile and siding with a politician, the choice is easy: Side with the pedo.

    Simple self interest. The chance that the pedo might do something that harms me is zero. I'm too old for that. No such luck with the politician, though.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  13. Hey! The 'free market' works by Jawnn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In this case, it's working like The Thought Police, but hey, at least it's responding to all the "think of the children" bleating. Right?

  14. Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    have you actually READ any of the "romance" novels? romanticizing adultery? yeah that's there. lewd descriptions of sex? yeah that's there. just general descriptions about hot nights? yeah most definitely there.

    ladies magazines and mens xxx mags stories are pretty much the same. what's the difference otherwise? well, the pictures of course. and that in the womens magazines half the articles are about how to get laid(the rest of the articles are just indirectly about it).

    oh and they would NOT function without the smut. not by a long shot. how the fuck do you make a story about being an (american)indian in 16th century raped(romantically-consensually) by a sensuel colonist function without the smut about fondling breasts and being fucked while tied up?? turn a 4 page novellette into one paragraph??

    lady of camellias is something that sort of works without the smut, by just implying the smut. the cheap stuff on womens magazines.. not so much.

    oh and the only way to enjoy those stories is to get some hot chicks to read them whilst sipping wine(in university, IT guild ftw). it's better if you get some late victorian style smut though..

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  15. Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Haha. You're retarded. Erotica means whatever the person using the word wants it to mean. That's everything from straight up fapfiction to extremely well written stories that happen to have explicit sex.

  16. Re:RTFA - Not an Infowar by gmuslera · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What you do what those books were written in a culture different than ours, describing things that were normal, accepted or according with the moral values of that time or place compared with the ones of our times? what about the future with our own values? Oh, wait there is no place in the future for our current books.

    Maybe most of what was banned deserved it, had no literary or any other value at all. But was all? And setting this precedent is opening the door for bad abuses of it, specially when people use their subjectivity (and political agenda, and economical interests, and so on) to decide what goes and what not.

    Maybe will be for the best, it will open an opportunity for alternate/uncensored markets (and no markets as "selling" could not be the main target there), leaving the current "sell digital as if it were paper" establishment behind at last.

  17. Dear MINISTRY OF TRUTH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please ban the following books as a threat to an Orderly Society. Also, the children. KThxBye!

    * The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    * The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

    * The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

    * To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    * The Color Purple by Alice Walker

    * Ulysses by James Joyce

    * Beloved by Toni Morrison

    * The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

    * 1984 by George Orwell

    * The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

    * Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov

    * Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

    * Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

    * A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

    * Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

    * Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

    * Animal Farm by George Orwell

    * The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

    * As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

    * A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

    * Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

    * Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

    * Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

    * Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

    * Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

    * Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

    * Native Son by Richard Wright

    * One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

    * Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

    * For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

    * On the Road by Jack Kerouac

    * The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

    * The Call of the Wild by Jack London

    * To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

    * Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

    * Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

    * The World According to Garp by John Irving

    * All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

    * A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

    * The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
     

    If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

    — On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

    1. Re:Dear MINISTRY OF TRUTH by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You forgot the Bible. There's some pretty racy stuff in there, and a lot of obviously socialistic stuff.

  18. Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Romance novels usually contain erotica.

    As for government, a wise man (don't make me slap you) once said, "Poor is the man whose pleasure depends on the permission of another."

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  19. Re:Facts please. by Chatsubo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Rape, incest ...

    So... no more bibles then.

    --
    > no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
  20. Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Before your politically correct obtusery is modded too far up, might I just draw your attention to the context we're discussing within here. "Pleasure" might frequently be a euphemism for sex, but sex is not the only pleasure, and indeed while the main subject of discussion is 'erotica' which is sexual in nature, it takes the form of inanimate objects which people relate to each in their own way. The quote then is not referring to rape, but the ability to access and consume pleasurable things, literal inanimate objects.

    --
    I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit