18 ms·

Removing books from a "book" marketplace, that do not break any laws, aren't lewd or pornographic, and simply present alternative information on a subject, is n

Removing books from a "book" marketplace, that do not break any laws, aren't lewd or pornographic, and simply present alternative information on a subject, is not on the same level as spam. Censorship is censorship. It doesn't need to be a political body to make it so. In the 80's, the idea of the corporate ran dystopian future where a megalomaniac controlled society through his mega corporation was seen as scary future. Now we get the usual boot licking going on every time this topic is brought up as Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and Google (Alphabet) actually put into practice real censorship and attempt to control the majority of online communication, ideas, and a good piece of all information over the internet. What a turn for the worse we've taken as a society.

wlesieutre 8y ago
> present alternative information Like shouting "fire" in a crowded auditorium that is in fact not on fire? Let's call it what it is: we're talking about lying about things that can and will literally kill people. Why should Amazon be expected to provide a platform for that?
- wowzap 8y ago
  You can do that if you want, "fire in a movie theater" was an argument in an overturned Supreme Court ruling.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    You can do that, but if you feel entitled to the theater's help in doing it then I don't know what to tell you. And if you expect the theater to let you in when you come back to watch a movie the next day, you're going to be disappointed.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    It's also worth reminding that it was a ruling which put a prominent politician in prison for campaigning against WW1 and encouraging people to resist the draft. Which is to say, it came preassembled with a slippery slope.
- spaginal 8y ago
  What literally kills people when they get an alternative opinion or simply information about vaccinations... which is the raison du jour, but the not the only information being blocked by these companies. What happens when the prevailing opinion in the future becomes that raising boys as boys is dangerous for their health? Girls as girls? Promoting religion to your children seen as dangerous to popular thought? Do we continue down this path and start banning literature on how to raise children properly, the bible? After all, it may disagree with YOUR OWN held opinion, so it must be removed, for the safety of the children, right? We are entering the territory of cheering on the thought police, where you disregard your own faculties and off load all of your exposure to information and decision making to a highly select group of people, with their own biases, much of it monetarily motivated. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?
  - lancesells 8y ago
    > We are entering the territory of cheering on the thought police, where you disregard your own faculties and off load all of your exposure to information and decision making to a highly select group of people, with their own biases, much of it monetarily motivated. Can't you really say this about the anti-vac community and the ones publishing and selling these books? Or am I reading your statement wrong and that's who you're speaking to?
  - imgabe 8y ago
    > What happens when the prevailing opinion in the future becomes that raising boys as boys is dangerous for their health? So, a store deciding not to carry a book is the "thought police" but raising your child to eschew any behavior or, dare I say, thought that you deem insufficiently "boy-like" is....not the thought police? How do you feel about Christian bookstores? Should they be forced to carry the Koran, satanic literature, atheist books, and everything else they might disagree with? Or is it ok for them to exercise "censorship" since they're not censoring any ideas you like?
  - zeckalpha 8y ago
    A search for “dead autistic kid” finds many examples of ignorant mistreatment.
- lr4444lr 8y ago
  Lying and fraud requires intent to deceive. You need to prove that.
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    Be right back, I’m going to run screaming into this crowded building which I definitely believe is on fire based on no particular evidence, and no one can prove otherwise. In fact, it’s not just this building, every building is on fire. Right this second! And it’s your civic duty to join me in warning people. I’ve written a book explaining all this and if Amazon won’t sell it in their store I’m going to cry foul. If you can’t say I’m lying, is there a better word for it?
imgabe 8y ago
Cry me a river. If the authors want to sell their books, they can open up their own website, set up a table at the local flea market, rent a store space and stock it with all the quackery they want. Amazon is not the only sales outlet in the world. Nobody is stopping them from selling anything. Amazon is not obligated to carry their merchandise any more than they would be obligated to carry any Amazon branded products in their own stores. If anything, whenever Amazon is mentioned here, people come in to complain that they need to do more to remove garbage products from their website. Here's a garbage product that literally kills people when they use it. If it were a toaster, it would be yanked from the shelves and the manufacturer would be getting sued for wrongful death.
- spaginal 8y ago
  I don't disagree in the slightest that they should explore all avenues for sale. Answer this question to satiate my curiosity, what if Stripe and Paypal refuse to process credit card payments for these authors? What if Square refuses to swipe cards at the flea market for the author?
  - _trampeltier 8y ago
    It does already happen. There are many cases like Fetlife etc ...
  - imgabe 8y ago
    Paypal (and probably Stripe?) are notorious for freezing customer accounts with little to no explanation, so to answer you question to what if they did that...probably nothing? Paypal or Stripe or Square are not any more obligated to do business with a particular customer than anyone else is. They can always accept cash, checks, Bitcoin, barter.
  - jpindar 8y ago
    Paypal already refuses to allow itself to be used for sales of various legal but controversial products.
    - 8y ago
jsight 8y ago
> Now we get the usual boot licking going on every time this topic is brought up as Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and Google (Alphabet) [...] That's funny, because every time that I'm here lately I seem to see a pile of upvoted stories and comments about how [insert big company here] is committing [atrocity here]. Sometimes its true, but often its backed by little evidence other than someone's opinion. I'm not convinced that things are nearly so imbalanced as you are making them sound.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  Of course they're not, that's why the poster is resorting to such hyperbolic language and emotional anchoring.
driverdan 8y ago
> aren't lewd or pornographic What's wrong with something that's lewd or pornographic? It's far better than quackery.
- imtringued 8y ago
  Payment processors will cut you off and it doesn't fit with their Family Friendly™️ image.
  - Pharmakon 8y ago
    Are you sure the bigger issue isn’t actually the rate of fraud and chargebacks?
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    You're sort of missing the point here, which is that the poster above considers sexy sex perfectly legitimate grounds for censorship while claiming to deplore the phenomenon.
- meruru 8y ago
  It's still taboo for a lot of people unfortunately.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kevinh 8y ago
Removing a book for breaking a law is censorship. Removing a book for being lewd or pornographic is censorship. What makes those instances of censorship acceptable, and removing books peddling harmful claims masquerading as science unacceptable?
- Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
  Removing a book is censorship. Not carrying a broad category of books is a policy. E.g. if they didn't carry any book on autism, this would be a strange decision, but within their competence. Judging a single book is not.
baddox 8y ago
> Removing books from a "book" marketplace, that do not break any laws, aren't lewd or pornographic, and simply present alternative information on a subject, is not on the same level as spam. Huh? Why would you make an exception for pornography in your definition of censorship? Porn is like the most obvious textbook example of censorship.
- Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
  At least this is a blanket category, not hand-picked example.
banachtarski 8y ago
Why do you distinguish lewdness and pornography from fake science. Your metric for classifying various forms of content honestly just renders your argument rather hypocritical.
js2 8y ago
> What a turn for the worse we've taken as a society. Perhaps it's a game of whack-a-mole and censorship trying to suppress vaccine misinformation, but the anti-vax movement is an actual real danger to society, and misinformation was cited as one of the problems in recent testimony before Congress by a teen who defied his parents’ anti-vaccination beliefs: "The sources which spread misinformation should be the primary concern of the American people." [1] Fortunately this teen learned to think on his own ("learning to find credible research and information is fundamental to finding truth in a world of misleading facts and false views"). Ideally, I'd want everyone to learn to think critically, and to combat misinformation with information. I don't like the slippery slope of censorship either. But I also can't stand the fact that my children live in a world with kids who aren't vaccinated. So I hesitatingly applaud Amazon here. [1] https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lindenberger.pdf https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lindenberger.pdf
wcarron 8y ago
> Removing books from a "book" marketplace, that do not break any laws, aren't lewd or pornographic, and simply present alternative information on a subject, is not on the same level as spam. From the Article: 'Wired magazine noted that Amazon is crowded with titles promoting unproven treatments for autism that include “sex, yoga, camel milk, electroconvulsive therapy, and veganism.”' Removing books that contain outright lies isn't censorship. It's simple denying a platform for bald-faced liars to profit off misleading the public.
crooked-v 8y ago
Claims that forcing children to drink bleach will cure autism are far beyond "alternative information".
tuesdayrain 8y ago
I'm not seeing why censoring lewd material is fine, while censoring books that falsely claim to cure autism is wrong. They all seem like arbitrary places to draw the line.
drngdds 8y ago
>alternative information The phrase your looking for is "dangerous lies"

wlesieutre 8y ago

> present alternative information Like shouting "fire" in a crowded auditorium that is in fact not on fire? Let's call it what it is: we're talking about lying about things that can and will literally kill people. Why should Amazon be expected to provide a platform for that?

wowzap 8y ago
You can do that if you want, "fire in a movie theater" was an argument in an overturned Supreme Court ruling.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  You can do that, but if you feel entitled to the theater's help in doing it then I don't know what to tell you. And if you expect the theater to let you in when you come back to watch a movie the next day, you're going to be disappointed.
- int_19h 8y ago
  It's also worth reminding that it was a ruling which put a prominent politician in prison for campaigning against WW1 and encouraging people to resist the draft. Which is to say, it came preassembled with a slippery slope.
spaginal 8y ago
What literally kills people when they get an alternative opinion or simply information about vaccinations... which is the raison du jour, but the not the only information being blocked by these companies. What happens when the prevailing opinion in the future becomes that raising boys as boys is dangerous for their health? Girls as girls? Promoting religion to your children seen as dangerous to popular thought? Do we continue down this path and start banning literature on how to raise children properly, the bible? After all, it may disagree with YOUR OWN held opinion, so it must be removed, for the safety of the children, right? We are entering the territory of cheering on the thought police, where you disregard your own faculties and off load all of your exposure to information and decision making to a highly select group of people, with their own biases, much of it monetarily motivated. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?
- lancesells 8y ago
  > We are entering the territory of cheering on the thought police, where you disregard your own faculties and off load all of your exposure to information and decision making to a highly select group of people, with their own biases, much of it monetarily motivated. Can't you really say this about the anti-vac community and the ones publishing and selling these books? Or am I reading your statement wrong and that's who you're speaking to?
- imgabe 8y ago
  > What happens when the prevailing opinion in the future becomes that raising boys as boys is dangerous for their health? So, a store deciding not to carry a book is the "thought police" but raising your child to eschew any behavior or, dare I say, thought that you deem insufficiently "boy-like" is....not the thought police? How do you feel about Christian bookstores? Should they be forced to carry the Koran, satanic literature, atheist books, and everything else they might disagree with? Or is it ok for them to exercise "censorship" since they're not censoring any ideas you like?
- zeckalpha 8y ago
  A search for “dead autistic kid” finds many examples of ignorant mistreatment.
lr4444lr 8y ago
Lying and fraud requires intent to deceive. You need to prove that.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  Be right back, I’m going to run screaming into this crowded building which I definitely believe is on fire based on no particular evidence, and no one can prove otherwise. In fact, it’s not just this building, every building is on fire. Right this second! And it’s your civic duty to join me in warning people. I’ve written a book explaining all this and if Amazon won’t sell it in their store I’m going to cry foul. If you can’t say I’m lying, is there a better word for it?

imgabe 8y ago

Cry me a river. If the authors want to sell their books, they can open up their own website, set up a table at the local flea market, rent a store space and stock it with all the quackery they want. Amazon is not the only sales outlet in the world. Nobody is stopping them from selling anything. Amazon is not obligated to carry their merchandise any more than they would be obligated to carry any Amazon branded products in their own stores. If anything, whenever Amazon is mentioned here, people come in to complain that they need to do more to remove garbage products from their website. Here's a garbage product that literally kills people when they use it. If it were a toaster, it would be yanked from the shelves and the manufacturer would be getting sued for wrongful death.

spaginal 8y ago
I don't disagree in the slightest that they should explore all avenues for sale. Answer this question to satiate my curiosity, what if Stripe and Paypal refuse to process credit card payments for these authors? What if Square refuses to swipe cards at the flea market for the author?
- _trampeltier 8y ago
  It does already happen. There are many cases like Fetlife etc ...
- imgabe 8y ago
  Paypal (and probably Stripe?) are notorious for freezing customer accounts with little to no explanation, so to answer you question to what if they did that...probably nothing? Paypal or Stripe or Square are not any more obligated to do business with a particular customer than anyone else is. They can always accept cash, checks, Bitcoin, barter.
- jpindar 8y ago
  Paypal already refuses to allow itself to be used for sales of various legal but controversial products.
  - 8y ago

jsight 8y ago

> Now we get the usual boot licking going on every time this topic is brought up as Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and Google (Alphabet) [...] That's funny, because every time that I'm here lately I seem to see a pile of upvoted stories and comments about how [insert big company here] is committing [atrocity here]. Sometimes its true, but often its backed by little evidence other than someone's opinion. I'm not convinced that things are nearly so imbalanced as you are making them sound.

anigbrowl 8y ago
Of course they're not, that's why the poster is resorting to such hyperbolic language and emotional anchoring.

driverdan 8y ago

> aren't lewd or pornographic What's wrong with something that's lewd or pornographic? It's far better than quackery.

imtringued 8y ago
Payment processors will cut you off and it doesn't fit with their Family Friendly™️ image.
- Pharmakon 8y ago
  Are you sure the bigger issue isn’t actually the rate of fraud and chargebacks?
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  You're sort of missing the point here, which is that the poster above considers sexy sex perfectly legitimate grounds for censorship while claiming to deplore the phenomenon.
meruru 8y ago
It's still taboo for a lot of people unfortunately.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kevinh 8y ago

Removing a book for breaking a law is censorship. Removing a book for being lewd or pornographic is censorship. What makes those instances of censorship acceptable, and removing books peddling harmful claims masquerading as science unacceptable?

Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
Removing a book is censorship. Not carrying a broad category of books is a policy. E.g. if they didn't carry any book on autism, this would be a strange decision, but within their competence. Judging a single book is not.

baddox 8y ago

> Removing books from a "book" marketplace, that do not break any laws, aren't lewd or pornographic, and simply present alternative information on a subject, is not on the same level as spam. Huh? Why would you make an exception for pornography in your definition of censorship? Porn is like the most obvious textbook example of censorship.

Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
At least this is a blanket category, not hand-picked example.

banachtarski 8y ago

Why do you distinguish lewdness and pornography from fake science. Your metric for classifying various forms of content honestly just renders your argument rather hypocritical.

js2 8y ago

> What a turn for the worse we've taken as a society. Perhaps it's a game of whack-a-mole and censorship trying to suppress vaccine misinformation, but the anti-vax movement is an actual real danger to society, and misinformation was cited as one of the problems in recent testimony before Congress by a teen who defied his parents’ anti-vaccination beliefs: "The sources which spread misinformation should be the primary concern of the American people." [1] Fortunately this teen learned to think on his own ("learning to find credible research and information is fundamental to finding truth in a world of misleading facts and false views"). Ideally, I'd want everyone to learn to think critically, and to combat misinformation with information. I don't like the slippery slope of censorship either. But I also can't stand the fact that my children live in a world with kids who aren't vaccinated. So I hesitatingly applaud Amazon here. [1] https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lindenberger.pdf https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lindenberger.pdf

wcarron 8y ago

> Removing books from a "book" marketplace, that do not break any laws, aren't lewd or pornographic, and simply present alternative information on a subject, is not on the same level as spam. From the Article: 'Wired magazine noted that Amazon is crowded with titles promoting unproven treatments for autism that include “sex, yoga, camel milk, electroconvulsive therapy, and veganism.”' Removing books that contain outright lies isn't censorship. It's simple denying a platform for bald-faced liars to profit off misleading the public.

crooked-v 8y ago

Claims that forcing children to drink bleach will cure autism are far beyond "alternative information".

tuesdayrain 8y ago

I'm not seeing why censoring lewd material is fine, while censoring books that falsely claim to cure autism is wrong. They all seem like arbitrary places to draw the line.

drngdds 8y ago

>alternative information The phrase your looking for is "dangerous lies"