5 ms·

I still don't see how stopping the sale of an item on a private company's platform equates to denying freedom of speech. If we were talking about a government b

by m8s 6y ago

I still don't see how stopping the sale of an item on a private company's platform equates to denying freedom of speech. If we were talking about a government banning the sale of a specific book, author, or topic, then I absolutely agree. If we are talking about that same government banning specific books from schools, then I absolutely agree. But I don't agree that eBay's move here is denying freedom of speech. They're just deciding what they do and don't want on their platform.

roenxi 6y ago
If the free speech argument had anything to do with laws, people would be advocating settling it in court. The kerfuffle is about values and whether moral people have power.
A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
You are correct in terms about application of current laws. The issue is more complex though. We tend to associate books with ideas and exchange thereof. Explicit ban of an idea raises all sorts of issues regardless of any other issues that may have been related to it. In simple terms, is it a good idea to ban algebra if a vocal enough community of anti-algebra people convince ebay to not list it?
- m8s 6y ago
  How is eBay removing certain books from its marketplace banning an idea?
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    I am assuming good faith question and I will respond that way. In US, the entire market is divvied up between various oligopolies. You can name an industry and you can usually find 3-4 dominant companies that drive the market. Ebay and Amazon have ridiculous market power and reach ( reinforced by Covid ), which effectively means that if book is not available on their virtual shelves, that book does not exist for the general population. Ergo, removal from Ebay equals removing of an idea from the 'marketplace of ideas'. I am oversimplifying, but not by a lot.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    It is not outright ban, rather banishment to a very inhospitable place, a Siberia of ideas, so to say. (Russia often sent dissenters to live in Siberia.) If eBay was a tiny company, it would be nothing, but you cannot ignore the effects of scale and market dominance here. It is similar to the smartphone world: if Google and Apple block you, in practice you are destroyed.
- notahacker 6y ago
  > In simple terms, is it a good idea to ban algebra if a vocal enough community of anti-algebra people convince ebay to not list it? Is it OK for them to delist other things like spam and porn if enough people don't want to see them? If not, we're looking at a very different internet If so, we can probably reason about the merits of delisting based on whether we feel algebra might be good and early twentieth century casual racism the rightsholders have disavowed might be bad (or at least, not so good eBay ought to feel compelled to incur reputational damage to continue to distribute it). unlike adult content or spam, casual racism is an idea so important platforms ought not to impede its spread is an argument of course, just not a freedom of speech one.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    It is a good counter-argument. I will admit that I still marvel at the way it is structured. I do not think I can match that. It is a compliment. I will open by saying that, from my perspective, in accordance with Sturgeon's law, 80% of books on Ebay and Amazon ARE spam and should be delisted for the well-being of general populace and positive feeling of accomplishment for busy-bodies, who seem to be running those operations. If we start removing spam, we better get the proper authorities ready to remove the superfluous, pointless and downright dangerous material that spam produces. Still, is your standard 'did enough people complain'? If so, that is a bad standard, and most certainly not how internet was devised, or was intended to work. I think the issue I have with 'casual rasism' in this book is that I do not see it, and yet my access to the book is limited, because sufficient amount of people whined. In short, I do not buy this argument. But lets say I do, and we want to talk spreading bad ideas. US is ok with allowing Mein Kampf. How is it different? Why are those ideas ok to spread, but not that one? How is attempting to destroy an entire population less offensive than 'casual racism'? Do we have some sort of diagram that shows how victimhood is rated? The answer is really simple. It is not better or worse. It is just an idea. And if 'casual racism' is an idea, then its spread is absofuckinglutely a freedom of speech issue. Just not one one can easily get behind, because it is, well, bad. But that does not mean you can just pretend it does not exist.
    - notahacker 6y ago
michaelt 6y ago
I agree it isn't government censorship. But for those of us under pandemic lockdown, all human contact outside the home is over private companies' platforms. Seems to me if you're banned from all the major private platforms that's de factor censorship, if not de jure government censorship. More broadly, this also seems like a gigantic political victory for republicans: A few months ago the most high profile banned-on-all-major-platforms story was about Parler, a site that had literally been used to coordinate an attempt to overthrow democracy. Hardly an argument that a big 'cancel culture' exists or is running out of control! Now, the most high-profile story is about a beloved children's author and famed anti-fascist getting banned? You couldn't ask for better evidence of a 'cancel culture' run amok.
jimmydorry 6y ago
Can you name any time in history where the side burning books was in the right? If as a society we allow companies, that are equal to (if not more powerful than) the government we elect, to pick and choose what parts of public discourse are acceptable or not, we have no one but ourselves to blame when this inevitably goes pear-shaped. Like many other things in the past, what is legal right now may not be ethically and morally correct in the future. You are correct that society as we know it does not cease to function immediately after the giants like amazon, facebook, twitter, ebay, etc. take a specific action like banning a book or banning a user. However, the longer term implications are far more concerning and the time to start contemplating these issues was yesterday (or any other time in the last few years). The next best time is now.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Nobody is burning these books, it is the estate that doesn't want to publish certain books anymore. So the party holding the rights doesn't want new books out.
  - foolmeonce 6y ago
    What does a publisher's reversal about their wants have to do with selling books they already printed? I don't think(?) eBay globally banned selling of past copies of Meinkampf while the copyright was cleverly held by a German State. Doing so is pretending copyright is a right that extends to sold property that is a copy, extending a right too far, while banning a class of books like MeinKampf for your own reasons is perfectly valid. If they want to ban racist children's media on their platform then they should. That includes a lot of TinTin, popeye, Tom and Jerry, etc, that has never been classified as racist by some copyright holder. edit- s/published/printed
    - hef19898 6y ago
      I have a DVD of old Tom and Jerry, growing up I only saw the newer clips as I learned by seeing the recsit crap the old ones were. Same for some of the older Tintin, I have them as part of a collection, but my dear are the early ones set in Africa racist. Good as historical pop culture references, but by no means something to read, or watch, for fun or without some context.

by m8s 6y ago

roenxi 6y ago

If the free speech argument had anything to do with laws, people would be advocating settling it in court. The kerfuffle is about values and whether moral people have power.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago

You are correct in terms about application of current laws. The issue is more complex though. We tend to associate books with ideas and exchange thereof. Explicit ban of an idea raises all sorts of issues regardless of any other issues that may have been related to it. In simple terms, is it a good idea to ban algebra if a vocal enough community of anti-algebra people convince ebay to not list it?

m8s 6y ago
How is eBay removing certain books from its marketplace banning an idea?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  I am assuming good faith question and I will respond that way. In US, the entire market is divvied up between various oligopolies. You can name an industry and you can usually find 3-4 dominant companies that drive the market. Ebay and Amazon have ridiculous market power and reach ( reinforced by Covid ), which effectively means that if book is not available on their virtual shelves, that book does not exist for the general population. Ergo, removal from Ebay equals removing of an idea from the 'marketplace of ideas'. I am oversimplifying, but not by a lot.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  It is not outright ban, rather banishment to a very inhospitable place, a Siberia of ideas, so to say. (Russia often sent dissenters to live in Siberia.) If eBay was a tiny company, it would be nothing, but you cannot ignore the effects of scale and market dominance here. It is similar to the smartphone world: if Google and Apple block you, in practice you are destroyed.
notahacker 6y ago
> In simple terms, is it a good idea to ban algebra if a vocal enough community of anti-algebra people convince ebay to not list it? Is it OK for them to delist other things like spam and porn if enough people don't want to see them? If not, we're looking at a very different internet If so, we can probably reason about the merits of delisting based on whether we feel algebra might be good and early twentieth century casual racism the rightsholders have disavowed might be bad (or at least, not so good eBay ought to feel compelled to incur reputational damage to continue to distribute it). unlike adult content or spam, casual racism is an idea so important platforms ought not to impede its spread is an argument of course, just not a freedom of speech one.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  It is a good counter-argument. I will admit that I still marvel at the way it is structured. I do not think I can match that. It is a compliment. I will open by saying that, from my perspective, in accordance with Sturgeon's law, 80% of books on Ebay and Amazon ARE spam and should be delisted for the well-being of general populace and positive feeling of accomplishment for busy-bodies, who seem to be running those operations. If we start removing spam, we better get the proper authorities ready to remove the superfluous, pointless and downright dangerous material that spam produces. Still, is your standard 'did enough people complain'? If so, that is a bad standard, and most certainly not how internet was devised, or was intended to work. I think the issue I have with 'casual rasism' in this book is that I do not see it, and yet my access to the book is limited, because sufficient amount of people whined. In short, I do not buy this argument. But lets say I do, and we want to talk spreading bad ideas. US is ok with allowing Mein Kampf. How is it different? Why are those ideas ok to spread, but not that one? How is attempting to destroy an entire population less offensive than 'casual racism'? Do we have some sort of diagram that shows how victimhood is rated? The answer is really simple. It is not better or worse. It is just an idea. And if 'casual racism' is an idea, then its spread is absofuckinglutely a freedom of speech issue. Just not one one can easily get behind, because it is, well, bad. But that does not mean you can just pretend it does not exist.
  - notahacker 6y ago

michaelt 6y ago

I agree it isn't government censorship. But for those of us under pandemic lockdown, all human contact outside the home is over private companies' platforms. Seems to me if you're banned from all the major private platforms that's de factor censorship, if not de jure government censorship. More broadly, this also seems like a gigantic political victory for republicans: A few months ago the most high profile banned-on-all-major-platforms story was about Parler, a site that had literally been used to coordinate an attempt to overthrow democracy. Hardly an argument that a big 'cancel culture' exists or is running out of control! Now, the most high-profile story is about a beloved children's author and famed anti-fascist getting banned? You couldn't ask for better evidence of a 'cancel culture' run amok.

jimmydorry 6y ago

Can you name any time in history where the side burning books was in the right? If as a society we allow companies, that are equal to (if not more powerful than) the government we elect, to pick and choose what parts of public discourse are acceptable or not, we have no one but ourselves to blame when this inevitably goes pear-shaped. Like many other things in the past, what is legal right now may not be ethically and morally correct in the future. You are correct that society as we know it does not cease to function immediately after the giants like amazon, facebook, twitter, ebay, etc. take a specific action like banning a book or banning a user. However, the longer term implications are far more concerning and the time to start contemplating these issues was yesterday (or any other time in the last few years). The next best time is now.

hef19898 6y ago
Nobody is burning these books, it is the estate that doesn't want to publish certain books anymore. So the party holding the rights doesn't want new books out.
- foolmeonce 6y ago
  What does a publisher's reversal about their wants have to do with selling books they already printed? I don't think(?) eBay globally banned selling of past copies of Meinkampf while the copyright was cleverly held by a German State. Doing so is pretending copyright is a right that extends to sold property that is a copy, extending a right too far, while banning a class of books like MeinKampf for your own reasons is perfectly valid. If they want to ban racist children's media on their platform then they should. That includes a lot of TinTin, popeye, Tom and Jerry, etc, that has never been classified as racist by some copyright holder. edit- s/published/printed
  - hef19898 6y ago
    I have a DVD of old Tom and Jerry, growing up I only saw the newer clips as I learned by seeing the recsit crap the old ones were. Same for some of the older Tintin, I have them as part of a collection, but my dear are the early ones set in Africa racist. Good as historical pop culture references, but by no means something to read, or watch, for fun or without some context.