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so where is a good example of that litmus test being passed, where self published books are also routinely hosted?
by vmception 4y ago
so where is a good example of that litmus test being passed, where self published books are also routinely hosted?
- ALittleLight 4y agoI think Library Genesis is an excellent example. As a quick test they host both The Turner Diaries and The 1619 Project. https://libgen.li/ https://libgen.li/ I would believe the people who run libgen if they said they were against book banning - at least until I discovered the books that they did ban, if there are any.
- robonerd 4y agoProbably a better test for Library Genesis would be books that are notorious in Russia (whatever those might be, I don't know.) I doubt the Turner Diaries has much notoriety in Russia, due to the language barrier if nothing else.
- HWR_14 4y agoIndeed. If it's supported (tacitly or explicitly) by the Russian government, I would expect them to have books that polarize Americans.
- mardifoufs 4y agoOkay, but what russian books are banned on libgen? Because otherwise this is just such a weird conspiracy. The russian government is funding niche fringe books on a niche website to divide Americans? But also not censoring anything that would hurt their own cabale?
- HWR_14 4y agoMy point was more "of the books that would be banned, these are not the right type of books." I don't speak Russian, but I would doubt they have anti-Putin books in Russian or in English. That seems bad for the curators health.
- robonerd 4y agoLibgen absolutely does have anti-Putin books in English. But I don't know about Russian. For instance, I found: Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror by Alexander Litvinenko (the guy Putin murdered with Polonium) Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped by Garry Kasparov Freezing Order : A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath by Bill Browder Putin's labyrinth: spies, murder, and the dark heart of the new Russia by Steve Levine Mr. Putin by Fiona Hill
- HWR_14 4y agoThose are strong arguments that Libgen doesn't censor their curation.
- vmception 4y agoThat's interesting, my observation is that you keep using caricatures of US political polarization, where one has to imagine that the left imagines that The Turner Diaries is a good example of something to ban and one has to imagine that the right imagines that The 1619 Project is something to ban. This might be playing out reliably, in places that ban books. So way to go Library Genesis for passing the test. It just seems like US caricatures of beliefs that don't actually represent people's beliefs, while being limited to US stuff, is just not the best test.
- ALittleLight 4y agoI'm using The Turner Diaries because I know it is an extreme example. Rather than search for the most benign conservative/right wing/whatever kind of book that is banned, which would be hard, I just take a single known extreme example. I'm using The 1619 Project as an example because it was given in the article - not unfairly, I do think there are people who want to ban that book.