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Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they

Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the category of taste / political opinions and has gone too far too quickly. Much as I don't like what the silly cartoons are, and of course while I don't think Ebay is a public forum that has any obligations (they can do what they want), I think Ebay is getting in deeper than it should. Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale? T-shirts? Political buttons? Historical political pamphlets? Current political pamphlets or campaign material? How about baseball team merchandise that has racist mascots? (Why haven’t they?) Merchandise of companies where the CEO may have bigoted views? How about books that have words in them that discuss race, or in any way describe an unflattering picture of a certain group? Or scientific studies that may come to race-based findings? I think the other thing that bothers me is that to be protected by such measures, you have to be popular. And it's flimsy. This year it's <x> group, next year that group is forgotten and it's on to <y> group. Woe to the actually wronged group of people who can't garner enough popular support, and who fall by the wayside of laws that are less enforced because people thought the social-media driven justice system took care of it. Ps. And edit just to add, lest someone discount my opinion as from a privileged position, I am among one of the groups said to be portrayed in a racist way in those books. If only people’s concern about racism in cartoons extended to more important matters as well.

Fezzik 6y ago
and from a platform that still allows Mein Kampf to be listed it seems especially idiotic... Edit, to add: as a comment below notes eBay only allows annotated versions of the book. So maybe they are consistent; I didn’t click through any of the listings when I searched. I also have no idea how you annotate Mein Kampf to not be racist/anti-Semitic propaganda...
- snicksnak 6y ago
  It's the next step of corporate virtue signaling. Just repeating slogans on twitter or changing the bio and profile of a company account will not be enough anymore, instead pick a ridiculous hot topic from the news cycle and use this as an opportunity to implement an even more ridiculous policy change in your company to show that your company is down with the cause. I bet we will see even more of that.
  - brailsafe 6y ago
    I love the term virtue signalling, but I'd much prefer the stronger word come back into the regular lexicon: "sanctimonious". It feels more impactful, as in "we didn't need a new word to describe your tendency to shout about your moral superiority"
    - MarkLowenstein 6y ago
      In the 70s and 80s, a common complaint about American Republicans was that they were sanctimonious moralizers. Now another party has adopted that mantle, but a lot of people have yet to catch up with that fact.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Virtue signaling is such a great descriptive term for a lot of behavior. It's such a shame that it got politicized.
      - brailsafe 6y ago
        social grandstanding is another good one
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    “Oh we would never burn book... oh wait.” It really was not that long ago... like 20 years we knew that all the things we’re seeing now are wrong and even had an idea why they were wrong. There is going to be a kick back from all of this. I think we all know it, just not what form it will take.
naebother 6y ago
> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Private libraries can do whatever they like. Public ones should be required to carry even the most offensive book.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  You realize that libraries are not infinite in space or capacity, right? Every book in a library necessarily pushes out some other book that could have been in there but didn't make the cut. Given that, libraries shouldn't be required to carry every book, they should optimize their collections for what their local users want to read. If it turns out that old out of print childrens' books aren't popular, then why should they carry them?
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    I am happy to pay to acquire any of these banned books for the Internet Archive to scan, store, and serve them in perpetuity. Libraries come and go, and should be treated as temporary collections (fair enough re space constraints). To attempt to erase history (“cancel it”?) is to ignore its teachings.
    - brailsafe 6y ago
      and you can. From what I've seen, particularly at University libraries, they'll do sales of super old worn out books, or long since outdated academic material. Edit: In retrospect, this comment reads like I'm dismissing the parent or grandparents' concern, but really I'm just saying that you can definitely buy old stock that's been taken off shelves.
      - deleted 6y ago
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    - hda2 6y ago
      And what if the Internet Archive falls victim to this disease and decide to self-censor? What next? The precedent of books being illegal has already been set in many countries. Now all that is missing is the political will to have them banned (and at the rate things are deteriorating, I expect this will come sooner rather than later).
unityByFreedom 6y ago
> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Ebay is a private merchant. They can choose what to list too. Maybe this presents a copyright problem with clones, we don't know. I found the books by googling the title and PDF because I was curious about why they were removed. Curiosity satisifed and I still love Dr. Seuss.
- caeril 6y ago
  The "private company" argument, while fully and technically correct, is such a ridiculous canard to trot out at a time when we slide rapidly into public-private authoritarianism. Someone (probably), in 1934 Hacker News: "BASF, Deutsche Bank, Hugo Boss, Bayer, BMW, and Siemens are private merchants. They can choose what to sell, and to whom. Maybe this presents a survival problem for the Jews, we don't know." I guess it's ok since the public-private authoritarianism and book-burning is left-leaning this time?
  - api 6y ago
    Conservatives wouldn't complain if private companies were censoring and cancelling left-leaning content. They'd be out there defending private property rights and corporate freedom to act. It's transparently political. BTW: I don't think canceling left-leaning stuff is far fetched. If you think we have cancel culture now, wait until we have a serious "rebooted" labor movement in this country that starts getting traction. The gloves will come off.
    - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
      Bill Maher made this point, that Republicans have lately tried to appropriate "cancel culture" for being correctly rebuked, while what happens to people with his views is insane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXTUSP9a9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXTUSP9a9M Edit: Am I incorrect?
      - unityByFreedom 6y ago
breakfastduck 6y ago
Yep. I err on the side of not censoring. However, if they're gonna stop printing a couple of books because of severe racist overtones then whatever. But if they're banning the sale, which then leads to ownership, that's too far. We have to draw a line somewhere. As a heavily left leaning person who feels unnerved about the state of politics at the moment, this decision is extremely discomforting.
- gwright 6y ago
  > severe racist overtones I haven't seen a good summary of what parts of the withdrawn books were considered inappropriate, but my understanding is that the stronger objection has been to political cartoons that Theodor Seuss Geisel created. I've not seen any assertions (never mind evidence) that the children's books contained "severe racist overtones". To be clear, I'm pushing back on the "severe" adjective. There clearly have been assertions about racist overtones in the children's books, just not "severe" racist overtones -- at least that is my understanding. Unfortunately I guess it would be inappropriate to actually post the objectionable material for discussion since it has been made clear lately that there is no "use-mention" distinction permitted on these matters. We are therefore rapidly finding ourselves in a situation where the most easily offended person wields immense power to shutdown speech and commerce by simply asserting that something offends them and there is no recourse to challenge their opinion, it must be accepted without discussion. I find this situation appalling and rapidly approaching frightening.
  - runako 6y ago
    Wikipedia has it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo#Criticism I've owned copies with these pages. It's depressing to me that some people think that we should keep teaching this stuff to kids.
    - gwright 6y ago
      FWIW, this twitter thread is a has a more explicit summary of the objectionable images and text https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/969657433017614336 https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/96965743301761433... It did provide a lot more insight for me than the superficial coverage I found in most places.
slg 6y ago
Maybe you are not familiar with eBay's existing policies, but this seems to fall well in line with their prior behavior. From their official policy [1]: >Listings that promote, perpetuate or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination, including on the grounds of race, ethnicity, color, religion, gender or sexual orientation, aren't allowed. This includes but is not limited to the following: ... >Items with racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise demeaning portrayals, for example through caricatures or other exaggerated features, including figurines, cartoons, housewares, historical advertisements, and golliwogs I doubt the books would be banned under this policy alone, but the public uproar about them means they are going to be popular tokens among people who want them specifically because they are now deemed problematic and that group is going to include a lot of racists. [1] - http://ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/offensive-material-policy?id=4324 http://ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/of... EDIT: Anyone want to explain any downvotes that don't amount to "I don't like eBay's policy"? OP was basically saying that eBay was opening a can of worms and all I did was point to an official eBay policy saying the can was already open.
- deleted 6y ago
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- vageli 6y ago
  Why is Mein Kampf available then?
  - slg 6y ago
    As others have pointed out in this thread and is seemingly confirmed with a simple search of listings, eBay appears to only allows annotated versions of Mein Kampf which are meant for scholarly work. There is a historic value to those that doesn't exist for a Dr. Seuss book. And as the article points out, books that have a lower degree of historical significance like The Turner Diaries are removed. Also let's not pretend that these moderation policies are foolproof. There are always going to be examples that slip through the cracks. If you want eBay to remove them for sake of consistency, you are free to report those items.
deleted 6y ago
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thefourthchime 6y ago
Meanwhile… https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mein-Kampf-Annotated-Book-critically-1971-softcover-English-Translation-Manheim-/324505840327?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mein-Kampf-Annotated-Book-criticall...
- andyxor 6y ago
  well, they already started the book burnings so at least they're being consistent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings
dmix 6y ago
And you get downvoted on HN for even mentioning “slippery slope”.
- lettergram 6y ago
  I get flagged all the time on HN these days... For pointing out facts typically. But even as you suggested “slippery slopes” etc. For example yesterday I pointed out everything from the COVID numbers on the CDC website (showing death rates are not as bad as they seem) or that covid vaccines are 100x more dangerous than standard vaccines lol https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D124F787 https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D124F787 Frankly, it’s become exhausting posting here. I don’t even want to participate.
  - xenihn 6y ago
    I think Blind overtook HN as the front page of the tech industry during the pandemic.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    The quality of HN has decreased considerably over the last 4 years or so, much like the rest of society sadly. Posts like this, to me, should just be removed. There is little valid discussion, it's drowned out by nonsense and political pandering. Posts like these are no better than r/politics or r/conservative. HN used to be above this drivel, and actually had thoughtful replies. I hope dang and company push for a less politics focused approach because it's degrading here, rapidly. I have flagged this post, but I doubt it will do much.
    - lettergram 6y ago
      I’m happy to flag posts, but HN (back in 2008 when I joined) was always about the “hacker spirit” as well. Generally, major invasion of freedoms were permitted and discussions were thorough and thoughtful. you can look at the average length of post back then, then compare to this thread, to get a gist of what I mean. There also wasn’t downvoting analysis of data, there were retorts. Downvoting was typically reserved for poor manners. All my time here I’ve analyzed points of view from a data perspective and shared my data / results. Only the past year it’s been flagged to oblivion (often not even downvoted). I personally disagree and don’t think this post deserves a flag just because you don’t want to read it. Others do, it’s relevant to all our lives and the “hacker” ethos. On the same token, I do think general politics should be limited and probably off topic here (book burnings are a bit of an extreme breach of freedom). Personally @dang if you’re listening, we should probably remove flag abusers. This is getting ridiculous
deleted 6y ago
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teawrecks 6y ago
Yeah this doesn't even make sense to me. No one asked eBay to do this. I cringe at racial stereotypes as much as the next guy, but eBay is the flee market of the internet. The whole point is that you can buy/sell anything there as long as it's legal.
- trav4225 6y ago
  three words: corporate virtue signalling
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
gnopgnip 6y ago
Ebay restricts many categories of goods that are otherwise legal to sell, and this is in line with their longstanding policies. Jewelry and monetary equivalents are sold on Ebay, and they get lower transaction fees than most categories.
deleted 6y ago
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userbinator 6y ago
The most disturbing thing about this phenomenon is its encouragement to essentially attempt to destroy and rewrite history. I am more offended by that than anything else. The past may not have been very nice to certain groups, but it is what it is --- a historical artifact to learn from and remember. The other comments here comparing it to the Cultural Revolution are very relevant.
- eevilspock 6y ago
  History by its nature is always a rewriting of history. History to-date has been dominated by a white supremacist rewrite, so now there is an attempt to write corrections to that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
sriku 6y ago
I don't know these books, but I was wondering that given they are for children, couldn't they instead serve to initiate critical thinking about race bias?
leguy 6y ago
Eh, I feel eBay has more of a right to ban books than a library. Both are bad, and it’s terrible that society is in a place where book banning is virtuous.
- xvedejas 6y ago
  I don't necessarily think eBay should be forced with legal might to sell these books -- but it's a terribly bad look for their company. Book banning has always felt scummy to me, and I always think back to being a child when many in my community participated in Harry Potter book burning events. Book burning, witch burning, it's all mob mentality and it's terrifying.
pbreit 6y ago
This is a ridiculous over-reaction by eBay.
fumar 6y ago
This provided helpful context. https://adayinourshoes.com/was-dr-seuss-a-racist/ https://adayinourshoes.com/was-dr-seuss-a-racist/ https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/969657433017614336 https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/96965743301761433...
Aerroon 6y ago
>It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. If the library is publicly funded, then I don't really think this is OK. They might decide to not purchase additional copies of some books they disagree with, but I certainly don't want them to limit lending of what they have. If the library takes no public money then they can obviously do whatever they want.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  This private / publix split is idiotic and gets you nowhere. Either you are censored or you are not. "Oh sorry, the ISP is private, so they are allowed to disconnect you if they dont like what you wrote on twitter"
jb1991 6y ago
> This falls into the category of taste / political opinions and has gone too far too quickly. Welcome to America.
NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
But what should we all do?
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
But it does violate their own practical policies: > After the announcement, one woman said she listed two titles, “On Beyond Zebra!” and “McElligot’s Pool,” for sale on eBay on Wednesday. Later that day, she said, she received an email from eBay explaining that “On Beyond Zebra!” had been removed from sale because it violated eBay’s “offensive material policy.” The second title was pulled Thursday morning, she said. As in, the usual über vague policies that give the interpreter of the rules carte blanche to deem whatever he will a violation of the “rules”, — the typical prætence of rule of law, for what is really rule of men. > Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale? T-shirts? Political buttons? Historical political pamphlets? Current political pamphlets or campaign material? How about baseball team merchandise that has racist mascots? (Why haven’t they?) Merchandise of companies where the CEO may have bigoted views? Logic? If ever there will be a consistent thought process, it will be based on analysing profits and on nothing more, not on the actual qualities of the work removed, and most often it is not even about profit, but about gut feeling and arbitrary bandwagons and standards of being offended. > How about books that have words in them that discuss race, or in any way describe an unflattering picture of a certain group? Or scientific studies that may come to race-based findings? If ever they become notorious enough that they end up on advertiser's networks blacklists, and thus hurt their profits, then yes. Consider the situation with TVTropes that implemented it's “content policy” to ban certain content in 2012 for advertisement reasons. The policy itself speaks of content, but in implementation, only matter notorious enough to end up on advertiser's blacklists was removed. So Kodomono Zikan, a work infamous, but actually quite mild when one takes the time to read it, is banned from being mentioned there, but less infamous works such as Prisma Ilya which go far further in serializing minors can freely be featured there, as they never became popular enough to be featured on advertiser's blacklists. If ever a company have any rational thought process, it shall be in the pursuit of profit; morality is never a rational objective.
alsetmusic 6y ago
> Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale? T-shirts? Political buttons? Historical political pamphlets? Current political pamphlets or campaign material? How about baseball team merchandise that has racist mascots? (Why haven’t they?) Merchandise of companies where the CEO may have bigoted views? I don't disagree. One thing that I think worth considering is that the seller is clearly making an attempt at a form of profiteering. I don't pretend to know if eBay intends to continue to restrict sales of these titles for all time. I certainly find it in poor taste that the seller wanted to use the moment to make a quick buck. I just searched 'ebay nazi memorabilia' and found an iron cross. No swastikas. Not sure the extent of their ToS cause I don't use eBay so I'm not reading them. From the article: > After the announcement, one woman said she listed two titles, “On Beyond Zebra!” and “McElligot’s Pool,” for sale on eBay on Wednesday. Later that day, she said, she received an email from eBay explaining that “On Beyond Zebra!” had been removed from sale because it violated eBay’s “offensive material policy.” The second title was pulled Thursday morning, she said. Sure, some sports fans were very opposed to changing team names. Childhood memories and nostalgia are even more effective knee-jerk reactionary topics. Had eBay said that they were temporarily banning the sale of these titles, I think they could have prevented sellers from profiting off a big news story about racism without much negative publicity. They could then quietly lift the ban after the next big thing had refocused everyone's attention and this was forgot. That said, I'm divided. I'm anti-racist. I prefer free speech and free expression. I believe POS Klansman have a right to say ignorant garbage. But I also support "no shirt, no shoes, no service." Put another way, my business has a right not to peddle your wares.
- tenpies 6y ago
  > I don't disagree. One thing that I think worth considering is that the seller is clearly making an attempt at a form of profiteering. Is it profiteering? It's still legal to sell the book in other markets, for the time being. You're also talking about an item that: 1. Is effective immediately, no longer in production 2. Being censored and banned 3. Probably being destroyed, just not in literal book burnings 4. Has clear literal and historical value If I were a rare book collector I'd be all over these. Even if I were a speculative investor I would consider buying some and waiting a couple of decades for society to regain its wits or burn down.
johncozen 6y ago
I tend to agree. They haven’t even taken the books out of the treasury apps.
deleted 6y ago
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King-Aaron 6y ago
Lets be fair, "If I ran the zoo" is pretty blatantly racist.
- YarickR2 6y ago
  Let's be fair, this is just an opinion, and very subjective at that
  - King-Aaron 6y ago
    "helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant" is subjective to you?
    - elefanten 6y ago
      It’s a comedy children’s book from an author who liberally applies absurdism. And he and the book are products of the prevailing views of society of the time. Also with nontrivially different demographics. Among those different views, are included different attitudes about emotional safety(ism), propriety, politeness and so on. Yes, it’s quite subjective and context-bound. Being intellectually reactionary, being uncharitable, applying stipulative 2020 norms to 1950s work... these are all analytic missteps.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      I read it and see nothing in this sentence. I am starting to think that this is really much ado about nothing. Woke crowd should start picking their battles/victims more carefully since this may be the last straw for regular people ( HN crowd is not exactly a representative of general population ).
    - nmfisher 6y ago
      My Chinese wife thinks this is hilarious - so yes, it is very subjective.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
Causality1 6y ago
The only thing that truly bothers me is the lying and hypocrisy. I don't care what ebay does and doesn't allow. I do care about the ongoing lie that their removals have anything at all to do with offensive or discriminatory material. The Seuss books are being disallowed because eBay decided allowing them would cost more profit than it generated. End of story. They don't give a damn about racism and offensive depictions. If they did they'd ban the Bible, Quran, along with probably 75% of literature written before 1980. The Seuss books are now a public liability so they're gone. Whatever becomes a public liability next will find a ready justification for its own banishment.
- drewzero1 6y ago
  Whatever way eBay's PR/Marketing team may spin it, they are a business and want to protect their bottom line. I don't agree with the depictions in these books, and I think it was the right choice to stop publishing them (also to protect the publisher's bottom line), but also I don't agree with scrubbing existing copies from existence. But eBay is a business and has a right to deny whatever they want on their platform. That's capitalism, baby!
tlholaday 6y ago
> Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale? Consider that the copyright owner, the Dr Seuss Foundation, has made the decision to cease publishing these six works. That is not the case for the other materials you mention.
rzz3 6y ago
Reasonable minds lost this battle already. Cancel everything, burn all the books, this is the new way.
dc2k08 6y ago
Amazon have been doing this for a couple of years now. They removed all of Greg Johnson's books for example. VISA and Mastercard have also blacklisted him meaning he can't use any payment processor to sell his books on his counter currents website. He can only accept money orders or cheques. There is nothing illegal in his books.
- rubatuga 6y ago
  He can always blog his ... views
  - dc2k08 6y ago
    He does that too.
threatofrain 6y ago
The family which manages the author's estate pulled the books. > The decision to cease publication and sales of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company, which was founded by Seuss’ family, told AP. Also, should eBay really be forced to carry books? Should the Seuss family really be forced to publish? When does the right to speech translate into someone else's obligation to publish?
imhoguy 6y ago
That way is going to have reverse effect. Same like Mein Kampf in Europe. It was banned for a long time but any teenager had access to it. This is how a cult grows.

Fezzik 6y ago

and from a platform that still allows Mein Kampf to be listed it seems especially idiotic... Edit, to add: as a comment below notes eBay only allows annotated versions of the book. So maybe they are consistent; I didn’t click through any of the listings when I searched. I also have no idea how you annotate Mein Kampf to not be racist/anti-Semitic propaganda...

snicksnak 6y ago
It's the next step of corporate virtue signaling. Just repeating slogans on twitter or changing the bio and profile of a company account will not be enough anymore, instead pick a ridiculous hot topic from the news cycle and use this as an opportunity to implement an even more ridiculous policy change in your company to show that your company is down with the cause. I bet we will see even more of that.
- brailsafe 6y ago
  I love the term virtue signalling, but I'd much prefer the stronger word come back into the regular lexicon: "sanctimonious". It feels more impactful, as in "we didn't need a new word to describe your tendency to shout about your moral superiority"
  - MarkLowenstein 6y ago
    In the 70s and 80s, a common complaint about American Republicans was that they were sanctimonious moralizers. Now another party has adopted that mantle, but a lot of people have yet to catch up with that fact.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Virtue signaling is such a great descriptive term for a lot of behavior. It's such a shame that it got politicized.
    - brailsafe 6y ago
      social grandstanding is another good one
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  “Oh we would never burn book... oh wait.” It really was not that long ago... like 20 years we knew that all the things we’re seeing now are wrong and even had an idea why they were wrong. There is going to be a kick back from all of this. I think we all know it, just not what form it will take.

naebother 6y ago

> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Private libraries can do whatever they like. Public ones should be required to carry even the most offensive book.

Pfhreak 6y ago
You realize that libraries are not infinite in space or capacity, right? Every book in a library necessarily pushes out some other book that could have been in there but didn't make the cut. Given that, libraries shouldn't be required to carry every book, they should optimize their collections for what their local users want to read. If it turns out that old out of print childrens' books aren't popular, then why should they carry them?
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  I am happy to pay to acquire any of these banned books for the Internet Archive to scan, store, and serve them in perpetuity. Libraries come and go, and should be treated as temporary collections (fair enough re space constraints). To attempt to erase history (“cancel it”?) is to ignore its teachings.
  - brailsafe 6y ago
    and you can. From what I've seen, particularly at University libraries, they'll do sales of super old worn out books, or long since outdated academic material. Edit: In retrospect, this comment reads like I'm dismissing the parent or grandparents' concern, but really I'm just saying that you can definitely buy old stock that's been taken off shelves.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - hda2 6y ago
    And what if the Internet Archive falls victim to this disease and decide to self-censor? What next? The precedent of books being illegal has already been set in many countries. Now all that is missing is the political will to have them banned (and at the rate things are deteriorating, I expect this will come sooner rather than later).

unityByFreedom 6y ago

> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Ebay is a private merchant. They can choose what to list too. Maybe this presents a copyright problem with clones, we don't know. I found the books by googling the title and PDF because I was curious about why they were removed. Curiosity satisifed and I still love Dr. Seuss.

caeril 6y ago
The "private company" argument, while fully and technically correct, is such a ridiculous canard to trot out at a time when we slide rapidly into public-private authoritarianism. Someone (probably), in 1934 Hacker News: "BASF, Deutsche Bank, Hugo Boss, Bayer, BMW, and Siemens are private merchants. They can choose what to sell, and to whom. Maybe this presents a survival problem for the Jews, we don't know." I guess it's ok since the public-private authoritarianism and book-burning is left-leaning this time?
- api 6y ago
  Conservatives wouldn't complain if private companies were censoring and cancelling left-leaning content. They'd be out there defending private property rights and corporate freedom to act. It's transparently political. BTW: I don't think canceling left-leaning stuff is far fetched. If you think we have cancel culture now, wait until we have a serious "rebooted" labor movement in this country that starts getting traction. The gloves will come off.
  - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
    Bill Maher made this point, that Republicans have lately tried to appropriate "cancel culture" for being correctly rebuked, while what happens to people with his views is insane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXTUSP9a9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXTUSP9a9M Edit: Am I incorrect?
    - unityByFreedom 6y ago

breakfastduck 6y ago

Yep. I err on the side of not censoring. However, if they're gonna stop printing a couple of books because of severe racist overtones then whatever. But if they're banning the sale, which then leads to ownership, that's too far. We have to draw a line somewhere. As a heavily left leaning person who feels unnerved about the state of politics at the moment, this decision is extremely discomforting.

gwright 6y ago
> severe racist overtones I haven't seen a good summary of what parts of the withdrawn books were considered inappropriate, but my understanding is that the stronger objection has been to political cartoons that Theodor Seuss Geisel created. I've not seen any assertions (never mind evidence) that the children's books contained "severe racist overtones". To be clear, I'm pushing back on the "severe" adjective. There clearly have been assertions about racist overtones in the children's books, just not "severe" racist overtones -- at least that is my understanding. Unfortunately I guess it would be inappropriate to actually post the objectionable material for discussion since it has been made clear lately that there is no "use-mention" distinction permitted on these matters. We are therefore rapidly finding ourselves in a situation where the most easily offended person wields immense power to shutdown speech and commerce by simply asserting that something offends them and there is no recourse to challenge their opinion, it must be accepted without discussion. I find this situation appalling and rapidly approaching frightening.
- runako 6y ago
  Wikipedia has it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo#Criticism I've owned copies with these pages. It's depressing to me that some people think that we should keep teaching this stuff to kids.
  - gwright 6y ago
    FWIW, this twitter thread is a has a more explicit summary of the objectionable images and text https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/969657433017614336 https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/96965743301761433... It did provide a lot more insight for me than the superficial coverage I found in most places.

slg 6y ago

Maybe you are not familiar with eBay's existing policies, but this seems to fall well in line with their prior behavior. From their official policy [1]: >Listings that promote, perpetuate or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination, including on the grounds of race, ethnicity, color, religion, gender or sexual orientation, aren't allowed. This includes but is not limited to the following: ... >Items with racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise demeaning portrayals, for example through caricatures or other exaggerated features, including figurines, cartoons, housewares, historical advertisements, and golliwogs I doubt the books would be banned under this policy alone, but the public uproar about them means they are going to be popular tokens among people who want them specifically because they are now deemed problematic and that group is going to include a lot of racists. [1] - http://ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/offensive-material-policy?id=4324 http://ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/of... EDIT: Anyone want to explain any downvotes that don't amount to "I don't like eBay's policy"? OP was basically saying that eBay was opening a can of worms and all I did was point to an official eBay policy saying the can was already open.

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vageli 6y ago
Why is Mein Kampf available then?
- slg 6y ago
  As others have pointed out in this thread and is seemingly confirmed with a simple search of listings, eBay appears to only allows annotated versions of Mein Kampf which are meant for scholarly work. There is a historic value to those that doesn't exist for a Dr. Seuss book. And as the article points out, books that have a lower degree of historical significance like The Turner Diaries are removed. Also let's not pretend that these moderation policies are foolproof. There are always going to be examples that slip through the cracks. If you want eBay to remove them for sake of consistency, you are free to report those items.

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thefourthchime 6y ago

Meanwhile… https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mein-Kampf-Annotated-Book-critically-1971-softcover-English-Translation-Manheim-/324505840327?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mein-Kampf-Annotated-Book-criticall...

andyxor 6y ago
well, they already started the book burnings so at least they're being consistent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings

dmix 6y ago

And you get downvoted on HN for even mentioning “slippery slope”.

lettergram 6y ago
I get flagged all the time on HN these days... For pointing out facts typically. But even as you suggested “slippery slopes” etc. For example yesterday I pointed out everything from the COVID numbers on the CDC website (showing death rates are not as bad as they seem) or that covid vaccines are 100x more dangerous than standard vaccines lol https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D124F787 https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D8/D124F787 Frankly, it’s become exhausting posting here. I don’t even want to participate.
- xenihn 6y ago
  I think Blind overtook HN as the front page of the tech industry during the pandemic.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  The quality of HN has decreased considerably over the last 4 years or so, much like the rest of society sadly. Posts like this, to me, should just be removed. There is little valid discussion, it's drowned out by nonsense and political pandering. Posts like these are no better than r/politics or r/conservative. HN used to be above this drivel, and actually had thoughtful replies. I hope dang and company push for a less politics focused approach because it's degrading here, rapidly. I have flagged this post, but I doubt it will do much.
  - lettergram 6y ago
    I’m happy to flag posts, but HN (back in 2008 when I joined) was always about the “hacker spirit” as well. Generally, major invasion of freedoms were permitted and discussions were thorough and thoughtful. you can look at the average length of post back then, then compare to this thread, to get a gist of what I mean. There also wasn’t downvoting analysis of data, there were retorts. Downvoting was typically reserved for poor manners. All my time here I’ve analyzed points of view from a data perspective and shared my data / results. Only the past year it’s been flagged to oblivion (often not even downvoted). I personally disagree and don’t think this post deserves a flag just because you don’t want to read it. Others do, it’s relevant to all our lives and the “hacker” ethos. On the same token, I do think general politics should be limited and probably off topic here (book burnings are a bit of an extreme breach of freedom). Personally @dang if you’re listening, we should probably remove flag abusers. This is getting ridiculous

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teawrecks 6y ago

Yeah this doesn't even make sense to me. No one asked eBay to do this. I cringe at racial stereotypes as much as the next guy, but eBay is the flee market of the internet. The whole point is that you can buy/sell anything there as long as it's legal.

trav4225 6y ago
three words: corporate virtue signalling
- deleted 6y ago
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gnopgnip 6y ago

Ebay restricts many categories of goods that are otherwise legal to sell, and this is in line with their longstanding policies. Jewelry and monetary equivalents are sold on Ebay, and they get lower transaction fees than most categories.

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userbinator 6y ago

The most disturbing thing about this phenomenon is its encouragement to essentially attempt to destroy and rewrite history. I am more offended by that than anything else. The past may not have been very nice to certain groups, but it is what it is --- a historical artifact to learn from and remember. The other comments here comparing it to the Cultural Revolution are very relevant.

eevilspock 6y ago
History by its nature is always a rewriting of history. History to-date has been dominated by a white supremacist rewrite, so now there is an attempt to write corrections to that.
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sriku 6y ago

I don't know these books, but I was wondering that given they are for children, couldn't they instead serve to initiate critical thinking about race bias?

leguy 6y ago

Eh, I feel eBay has more of a right to ban books than a library. Both are bad, and it’s terrible that society is in a place where book banning is virtuous.

xvedejas 6y ago
I don't necessarily think eBay should be forced with legal might to sell these books -- but it's a terribly bad look for their company. Book banning has always felt scummy to me, and I always think back to being a child when many in my community participated in Harry Potter book burning events. Book burning, witch burning, it's all mob mentality and it's terrifying.

pbreit 6y ago

This is a ridiculous over-reaction by eBay.

fumar 6y ago

This provided helpful context. https://adayinourshoes.com/was-dr-seuss-a-racist/ https://adayinourshoes.com/was-dr-seuss-a-racist/ https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/969657433017614336 https://twitter.com/consciouskidlib/status/96965743301761433...

Aerroon 6y ago

>It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. If the library is publicly funded, then I don't really think this is OK. They might decide to not purchase additional copies of some books they disagree with, but I certainly don't want them to limit lending of what they have. If the library takes no public money then they can obviously do whatever they want.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
This private / publix split is idiotic and gets you nowhere. Either you are censored or you are not. "Oh sorry, the ISP is private, so they are allowed to disconnect you if they dont like what you wrote on twitter"

jb1991 6y ago

> This falls into the category of taste / political opinions and has gone too far too quickly. Welcome to America.

NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago

But what should we all do?

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

But it does violate their own practical policies: > After the announcement, one woman said she listed two titles, “On Beyond Zebra!” and “McElligot’s Pool,” for sale on eBay on Wednesday. Later that day, she said, she received an email from eBay explaining that “On Beyond Zebra!” had been removed from sale because it violated eBay’s “offensive material policy.” The second title was pulled Thursday morning, she said. As in, the usual über vague policies that give the interpreter of the rules carte blanche to deem whatever he will a violation of the “rules”, — the typical prætence of rule of law, for what is really rule of men. > Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale? T-shirts? Political buttons? Historical political pamphlets? Current political pamphlets or campaign material? How about baseball team merchandise that has racist mascots? (Why haven’t they?) Merchandise of companies where the CEO may have bigoted views? Logic? If ever there will be a consistent thought process, it will be based on analysing profits and on nothing more, not on the actual qualities of the work removed, and most often it is not even about profit, but about gut feeling and arbitrary bandwagons and standards of being offended. > How about books that have words in them that discuss race, or in any way describe an unflattering picture of a certain group? Or scientific studies that may come to race-based findings? If ever they become notorious enough that they end up on advertiser's networks blacklists, and thus hurt their profits, then yes. Consider the situation with TVTropes that implemented it's “content policy” to ban certain content in 2012 for advertisement reasons. The policy itself speaks of content, but in implementation, only matter notorious enough to end up on advertiser's blacklists was removed. So Kodomono Zikan, a work infamous, but actually quite mild when one takes the time to read it, is banned from being mentioned there, but less infamous works such as Prisma Ilya which go far further in serializing minors can freely be featured there, as they never became popular enough to be featured on advertiser's blacklists. If ever a company have any rational thought process, it shall be in the pursuit of profit; morality is never a rational objective.

alsetmusic 6y ago

> Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale? T-shirts? Political buttons? Historical political pamphlets? Current political pamphlets or campaign material? How about baseball team merchandise that has racist mascots? (Why haven’t they?) Merchandise of companies where the CEO may have bigoted views? I don't disagree. One thing that I think worth considering is that the seller is clearly making an attempt at a form of profiteering. I don't pretend to know if eBay intends to continue to restrict sales of these titles for all time. I certainly find it in poor taste that the seller wanted to use the moment to make a quick buck. I just searched 'ebay nazi memorabilia' and found an iron cross. No swastikas. Not sure the extent of their ToS cause I don't use eBay so I'm not reading them. From the article: > After the announcement, one woman said she listed two titles, “On Beyond Zebra!” and “McElligot’s Pool,” for sale on eBay on Wednesday. Later that day, she said, she received an email from eBay explaining that “On Beyond Zebra!” had been removed from sale because it violated eBay’s “offensive material policy.” The second title was pulled Thursday morning, she said. Sure, some sports fans were very opposed to changing team names. Childhood memories and nostalgia are even more effective knee-jerk reactionary topics. Had eBay said that they were temporarily banning the sale of these titles, I think they could have prevented sellers from profiting off a big news story about racism without much negative publicity. They could then quietly lift the ban after the next big thing had refocused everyone's attention and this was forgot. That said, I'm divided. I'm anti-racist. I prefer free speech and free expression. I believe POS Klansman have a right to say ignorant garbage. But I also support "no shirt, no shoes, no service." Put another way, my business has a right not to peddle your wares.

tenpies 6y ago
> I don't disagree. One thing that I think worth considering is that the seller is clearly making an attempt at a form of profiteering. Is it profiteering? It's still legal to sell the book in other markets, for the time being. You're also talking about an item that: 1. Is effective immediately, no longer in production 2. Being censored and banned 3. Probably being destroyed, just not in literal book burnings 4. Has clear literal and historical value If I were a rare book collector I'd be all over these. Even if I were a speculative investor I would consider buying some and waiting a couple of decades for society to regain its wits or burn down.

johncozen 6y ago

I tend to agree. They haven’t even taken the books out of the treasury apps.

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King-Aaron 6y ago

Lets be fair, "If I ran the zoo" is pretty blatantly racist.

YarickR2 6y ago
Let's be fair, this is just an opinion, and very subjective at that
- King-Aaron 6y ago
  "helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant" is subjective to you?
  - elefanten 6y ago
    It’s a comedy children’s book from an author who liberally applies absurdism. And he and the book are products of the prevailing views of society of the time. Also with nontrivially different demographics. Among those different views, are included different attitudes about emotional safety(ism), propriety, politeness and so on. Yes, it’s quite subjective and context-bound. Being intellectually reactionary, being uncharitable, applying stipulative 2020 norms to 1950s work... these are all analytic missteps.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    I read it and see nothing in this sentence. I am starting to think that this is really much ado about nothing. Woke crowd should start picking their battles/victims more carefully since this may be the last straw for regular people ( HN crowd is not exactly a representative of general population ).
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    My Chinese wife thinks this is hilarious - so yes, it is very subjective.
    - deleted 6y ago
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Causality1 6y ago

The only thing that truly bothers me is the lying and hypocrisy. I don't care what ebay does and doesn't allow. I do care about the ongoing lie that their removals have anything at all to do with offensive or discriminatory material. The Seuss books are being disallowed because eBay decided allowing them would cost more profit than it generated. End of story. They don't give a damn about racism and offensive depictions. If they did they'd ban the Bible, Quran, along with probably 75% of literature written before 1980. The Seuss books are now a public liability so they're gone. Whatever becomes a public liability next will find a ready justification for its own banishment.

drewzero1 6y ago
Whatever way eBay's PR/Marketing team may spin it, they are a business and want to protect their bottom line. I don't agree with the depictions in these books, and I think it was the right choice to stop publishing them (also to protect the publisher's bottom line), but also I don't agree with scrubbing existing copies from existence. But eBay is a business and has a right to deny whatever they want on their platform. That's capitalism, baby!

tlholaday 6y ago

> Will they apply the logic here to all categories of goods for sale? Consider that the copyright owner, the Dr Seuss Foundation, has made the decision to cease publishing these six works. That is not the case for the other materials you mention.

rzz3 6y ago

Reasonable minds lost this battle already. Cancel everything, burn all the books, this is the new way.

dc2k08 6y ago

Amazon have been doing this for a couple of years now. They removed all of Greg Johnson's books for example. VISA and Mastercard have also blacklisted him meaning he can't use any payment processor to sell his books on his counter currents website. He can only accept money orders or cheques. There is nothing illegal in his books.

rubatuga 6y ago
He can always blog his ... views
- dc2k08 6y ago
  He does that too.

threatofrain 6y ago

The family which manages the author's estate pulled the books. > The decision to cease publication and sales of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company, which was founded by Seuss’ family, told AP. Also, should eBay really be forced to carry books? Should the Seuss family really be forced to publish? When does the right to speech translate into someone else's obligation to publish?

imhoguy 6y ago

That way is going to have reverse effect. Same like Mein Kampf in Europe. It was banned for a long time but any teenager had access to it. This is how a cult grows.