3 ms·

First they came for controversial right wing views... then they came for Covid “disinformation”... Putting the joke aside, I really think we are starting to se

by zpeti 6y ago

First they came for controversial right wing views... then they came for Covid “disinformation”... Putting the joke aside, I really think we are starting to see that once this door opens, it will only get worse. The pressure will increase to ban books and it will happen, whether or not it’s controversial or disinformation or whatever. I can only hope this will be enough of a market opportunity that someone else can build a business to rival things like amazon.

virtualritz 6y ago
We are living in an age where you can soon write a service running in the cloud that pulls text snippets from your favorite conspiracy theorists blogs, compiles them into books with sensationalist titles and automatically and constantly submits them to Amazon for publication to have unsuspecting buyers succumb to the resp. promoted world view. Essentially what people are already doing with public domain works or Wikipedia articles only with the intent of disinformation rather than profit (or at least both). Then Amazon will need more sophisticated tools to detect and filter those out ... you see where this is going.
chasd00 6y ago
yeah once they decided to remove something from their platform on their own accord the implication is they endorse everything remaining. I can buy Metallica's Kill'em All album and art. Amazon endorses violence. I can also buy various guides and howto's for unconventional warfare. Amazon endorses terrorism.
Karunamon 6y ago
That will be terribly difficult given that payment processors are also on this ideological censorship train. I think there might be a valid argument as to a single seller refusing to sell something, but once you get three credit card companies towing that line, that's pretty much unavoidable unless you go to crypto (which eliminates most customers).

3 ms·

First they came for controversial right wing views... then they came for Covid “disinformation”... Putting the joke aside, I really think we are starting to se

by zpeti 6y ago

virtualritz 6y ago
We are living in an age where you can soon write a service running in the cloud that pulls text snippets from your favorite conspiracy theorists blogs, compiles them into books with sensationalist titles and automatically and constantly submits them to Amazon for publication to have unsuspecting buyers succumb to the resp. promoted world view. Essentially what people are already doing with public domain works or Wikipedia articles only with the intent of disinformation rather than profit (or at least both). Then Amazon will need more sophisticated tools to detect and filter those out ... you see where this is going.
chasd00 6y ago
yeah once they decided to remove something from their platform on their own accord the implication is they endorse everything remaining. I can buy Metallica's Kill'em All album and art. Amazon endorses violence. I can also buy various guides and howto's for unconventional warfare. Amazon endorses terrorism.
Karunamon 6y ago
That will be terribly difficult given that payment processors are also on this ideological censorship train. I think there might be a valid argument as to a single seller refusing to sell something, but once you get three credit card companies towing that line, that's pretty much unavoidable unless you go to crypto (which eliminates most customers).