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I think you're drawing a pretty bizarre comparison here. Murray's work is still available on Amazon, as well as in most other book stores and libraries. Woody A

by chc 7y ago

I think you're drawing a pretty bizarre comparison here. Murray's work is still available on Amazon, as well as in most other book stores and libraries. Woody Allen has previously written books that are still available on Amazon, and he recently wrote another book, but does not have a publisher and isn't willing to self-publish, which still puts him ahead of roughly 90% of writers. Harvey Weinstein is a film producer who was recently convicted of multiple counts of rape, not a writer at all.

xhkkffbf 7y ago
I don't think it's a bizarre comparison at all. Many of the censored books are only censored in a few countries. They meet your criterion of being available on Amazon. So why are they special but the books disliked in America aren't? And heck, the "self-publish" idea could apply to all of the books in this library. They could also be tossed aside and told to "self-publish." This is a question the library is going to face. I'm just asking the question. And heck, I didn't choose the most controversial people out there for examples, but I'm getting downvoted like crazy. The hairsplitters will blather on about how only governments can censor, but the downvoting going on here sure feels like censorship to me.
- chc 7y ago
  You asked whether they should upload books by a rapist who hasn't written any books. I really disagree that this is a major quandry these people are going to have to face. Assuming your comment wasn't just an attempt to shoehorn in some barely related grievance about "cancel culture," it is very unclear exactly what comparison you were trying to draw between a rapist and a journalist who's been censored for telling the truth about an autocratic regime.
- samatman 7y ago
  This is because censorship is when you can't get a text by government fiat, because providing it is illegal. "Canceling" is a worrying trend, I agree with you on that. The people you're talking about are not experiencing censorship in America, making your proposal irrelevant in context. If you had proposed, say, hosting Milo Yiannopoulos' tweets, that would have almost made sense. It's still not state censorship, but they're no longer broadly available, whereas Murray's books clearly are. Almost. There's still a huge gulf here, because if you put Milo's tweets up on a web server (almost certainly someone has), no American need fear loss of access to that site.
  - antepodius 7y ago
    Give it a few years! The internet infrastructure providers will turn political soon enough.
- duskwuff 7y ago
  The fact that publishers have declined to publish an author's work does not mean that the author is being "censored". Publishers turn down books all the time. Many well-known authors have stories about how a book of theirs was rejected by many publishers before being accepted -- or before they got the message and wrote something more worthy of publication.

by chc 7y ago

xhkkffbf 7y ago

I don't think it's a bizarre comparison at all. Many of the censored books are only censored in a few countries. They meet your criterion of being available on Amazon. So why are they special but the books disliked in America aren't? And heck, the "self-publish" idea could apply to all of the books in this library. They could also be tossed aside and told to "self-publish." This is a question the library is going to face. I'm just asking the question. And heck, I didn't choose the most controversial people out there for examples, but I'm getting downvoted like crazy. The hairsplitters will blather on about how only governments can censor, but the downvoting going on here sure feels like censorship to me.

chc 7y ago
You asked whether they should upload books by a rapist who hasn't written any books. I really disagree that this is a major quandry these people are going to have to face. Assuming your comment wasn't just an attempt to shoehorn in some barely related grievance about "cancel culture," it is very unclear exactly what comparison you were trying to draw between a rapist and a journalist who's been censored for telling the truth about an autocratic regime.
samatman 7y ago
This is because censorship is when you can't get a text by government fiat, because providing it is illegal. "Canceling" is a worrying trend, I agree with you on that. The people you're talking about are not experiencing censorship in America, making your proposal irrelevant in context. If you had proposed, say, hosting Milo Yiannopoulos' tweets, that would have almost made sense. It's still not state censorship, but they're no longer broadly available, whereas Murray's books clearly are. Almost. There's still a huge gulf here, because if you put Milo's tweets up on a web server (almost certainly someone has), no American need fear loss of access to that site.
- antepodius 7y ago
  Give it a few years! The internet infrastructure providers will turn political soon enough.
duskwuff 7y ago
The fact that publishers have declined to publish an author's work does not mean that the author is being "censored". Publishers turn down books all the time. Many well-known authors have stories about how a book of theirs was rejected by many publishers before being accepted -- or before they got the message and wrote something more worthy of publication.