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

Posted by samzenpus on from the cleaning-things-up dept.

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."

12 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: 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.

    2. 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).

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

    Fahrenheit 451?

  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 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."
  5. 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...

  6. 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.

  7. 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.
  8. 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.