6 ms·

Censorship concerns rise over Texas bill; Abilene bookstore pushes back

68 points by hn_acker 2y ago

hn_acker 2y ago
For clarity, I added "book" to the title, which original is: > Censorship concerns rise over Texas bill; Abilene bookstore pushes back
- gosub100 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mindslight 2y ago
    Reporting on the persecution of intellectual curiosity is clearly in scope. Sorry that even the basics our existing have been politicized these days. Totalitarianism knows no boundaries.
    - gosub100 2y ago
      It doesn't lead to curious or interesting conversation though. it's an appeal to emotion. "harmful speech" was originally defined by the far left, and it looks like the far right defined it in a way that it wasn't intended. Not a surprise, is it?
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - mindslight 2y ago
        It's not a surprise. The discussion isn't the curious/interesting sort based around such actions being anything novel, rather it's a straightforward response to hacker ideals and our open society in general being under attack.
        gosub100 1y ago
        It's abusing the site for a fake moral dilemma, when in reality it's political campaigning. It's the same cancer that took down reddit.
        mindslight 1y ago
        What is the (fake) moral dilemma of hackers reacting to government censorship?
  - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
    Imagine thinking that another post about Rust or someone's LLM shovelware self promotion would be more interesting or important than this.
  - Latty 2y ago
    Freedom of speech is a topic that is political, but also deeply tied to hacker culture, which generally views the ability to share ideas as a fundamental part of the ethos.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - tekla 2y ago
      Tech is firmly against free speech now, so this is not going to fly.
    - anonfordays 2y ago
      That part of the ethos died a decade ago. Now, "hackers" are some of the most likely to censor opposing views and ban the sharing of heretical ideas.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - hn_acker 2y ago
    I posted this article because I think book restrictions by governments (and in this instance involving bookstores instead of just libraries) are interesting to hackers. However, I jumped the gun because the bill is still in committee with no progress yet, and the bill author is not optimistic that it will pass in this form. I will email hn@ycombinator.com to ask whether my post should be deleted.
jmclnx 2y ago
Cannot get into the link and neither can the Wayback Machine :( Here you go: https://www.yahoo.com/news/censorship-concerns-rise-over-texas-012236314.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/censorship-concerns-rise-over-tex... Looks like banning books in school is not enough, now they want to ban the sale of some books.
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  > Looks like banning books in school is not enough, now they want to ban the sale of some books. The irony, and insincerity, in this is ripe because book ban proponents would scream that they weren't "book bans" because they only wanted to ban books at school and not elsewhere. Turns out they want to ban books everywhere, just like their critics said.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Standard prohibitionist playbook: Get your foot in the door by at first claiming an agreeable, limited scope, and then slowly expand to universal prohibition.
    - gruez 2y ago
      So the opponents to "common sense gun legislation" have a point?
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        Absolutely. Same playbook.
- thatfrenchguy 2y ago
  Conservatives have always been like this, talking about small government while wanting a nanny state controlling what you can do and read
codeddesign 2y ago
It drives me crazy when people make argument like this without pointing to the actual legislation. https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/HB1375/2025 https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/HB1375/2025 After reading the bill, I don’t see the argument. The bill is around expanding the current laws involving directly selling or distributing media to minors where not only the business but also the employee would be held responsible.
- aiforecastthway 2y ago
  > It drives me crazy when people make argument like this without pointing to the actual legislation. The first sentence of the article reads "A bill set to be heard by the Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee at the Texas House is sparking criticism from small business owners across the state. ". The text "Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee" is a hyperlink. That hyperlink takes you to the bill tracker. > After reading the bill, I don’t see the argument. Introducing civil liability has a chilling effect on commerce (and, therefore, speech). From the article: "The biggest concern that we have is that for small businesses, first of all, we can’t afford the lawsuits."
  - codeddesign 2y ago
    Again…I don’t see the argument. There are already laws at federal and state levels..in every state. Are you saying that while a company would be responsible (current laws), an employee should not because of free speech?? (proposed law)
    - fweimer 2y ago
      It's not entirely clear, but the bill may try to extend liability to the first sale (or even earlier) also in cases where this sale wasn't to a minor (however a minor gained access subsequently). That would be quite different from existing law, wouldn't it?
    - aiforecastthway 2y ago
      > Are you saying that while a company would be responsible (current laws), an employee should not because of free speech?? (proposed law) Absolutely. Circumscribing liability in civil actions is one of the fundamental purposes of commercial legal structures; to wit, the two L's in "LLC" stand for "Limited Liability". The basic principle of limited liability has been deeply embedded in the USA's system of free commerce since its founding. Historically, there has always been a high bar for exceptions to this general principle. I think that should still be the case. I have two reasons for this. The first is selfish. The legal exposure risked by an hourly employee working at a bookstore would be far too great to justify the wages earned. The lines of "obscenity" are blurry enough that the risk to any employee would be substantial. If the business chose to indemnify their employees and owners -- which they likely would need to do in order to employ anyone -- then that indemnification would be part of a larger legal insurance policy. I do not own a book store, but I do own a large stake in a business. I carry a legal insurance policy (actually, two). These bookstores are probably part of the same risk pool that I'm buying into. Which means that if some random Karen is angry that a character in a book had two moms, my insurance premiums get to pay for that bullshit. The second reason is more principled. The intent of the proposed exception is to establish a statutory framework that would allow conservative religious groups to use civil courts to harass their ideological enemies. I do not find common cause with that purpose, because I do not believe in bullying people into silence via the State's courts, because I am a proud American. BTW: if the employee's actions are criminal, then the state can already prosecute that individual employee. Allowing private civil actions is extraneous, unless the ultimate goal is coercive or political. Weaponizing our system of commerce to wage culture wars was a bad idea when the intolerant left was doing it a decade ago, it was a bad idea when the intolerant evangelical right was doing in two decades ago, and it is a bad idea now that the new right is doing it.
flufluflufluffy 2y ago
Ah yes, the same people calling others snowflakes saying their children are going to be “harmed” by a book
BurningFrog 2y ago
Note that this is a bill from a single legislator that no one else is known to support. > With only one author and no co-sponsors so far, Goodwin doubts it will even reach the House floor.
- olyjohn 2y ago
  That means it she perfect time to throw it back in that legislators face before it goes any further. You can't just ignore these non-starter bills. They will just try tweak it every year until it passes.
- sdenton4 2y ago
  Meanwhile the free speech absolutists at the top of the federal government are ctrl-f deleting anything containing words they don't like...
ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
[flagged]
pascoej 2y ago
Growing up, my school couldn't afford paper for math worksheets while building the most expensive high school football stadium. There are definitely some priorities in Texas.
sabslikesobs 2y ago
I observe that the letter of the law intends to severely restrict pornographic materials from being made available to minors: see "harmful content" [1] and obscenity [2] definitions for the state of Texas. Realistically however, fringe content and the risk of misinterpretations of the law place a huge burden on the distributors of any kind of media, where they could be at risk for a suit at any time. This seems to point towards the need for age-checks at the book store, just to quash all possiblities---which is absurd since community-sourced content like tiktok is already so much worse for them, and that's not half as restricted! [1]: https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-43-24/ https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-43-24/ [2]: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/pe/htm/pe.43.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/pe/htm/pe.43.htm

68 points by hn_acker 2y ago

For clarity, I added "book" to the title, which original is: > Censorship concerns rise over Texas bill; Abilene bookstore pushes back

gosub100 2y ago
[flagged]
- mindslight 2y ago
  Reporting on the persecution of intellectual curiosity is clearly in scope. Sorry that even the basics our existing have been politicized these days. Totalitarianism knows no boundaries.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    It doesn't lead to curious or interesting conversation though. it's an appeal to emotion. "harmful speech" was originally defined by the far left, and it looks like the far right defined it in a way that it wasn't intended. Not a surprise, is it?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mindslight 2y ago
      It's not a surprise. The discussion isn't the curious/interesting sort based around such actions being anything novel, rather it's a straightforward response to hacker ideals and our open society in general being under attack.
      - gosub100 1y ago
        It's abusing the site for a fake moral dilemma, when in reality it's political campaigning. It's the same cancer that took down reddit.
        mindslight 1y ago
        What is the (fake) moral dilemma of hackers reacting to government censorship?
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  Imagine thinking that another post about Rust or someone's LLM shovelware self promotion would be more interesting or important than this.
- Latty 2y ago
  Freedom of speech is a topic that is political, but also deeply tied to hacker culture, which generally views the ability to share ideas as a fundamental part of the ethos.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tekla 2y ago
    Tech is firmly against free speech now, so this is not going to fly.
  - anonfordays 2y ago
    That part of the ethos died a decade ago. Now, "hackers" are some of the most likely to censor opposing views and ban the sharing of heretical ideas.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hn_acker 2y ago
  I posted this article because I think book restrictions by governments (and in this instance involving bookstores instead of just libraries) are interesting to hackers. However, I jumped the gun because the bill is still in committee with no progress yet, and the bill author is not optimistic that it will pass in this form. I will email hn@ycombinator.com to ask whether my post should be deleted.

jmclnx 2y ago

Cannot get into the link and neither can the Wayback Machine :( Here you go: https://www.yahoo.com/news/censorship-concerns-rise-over-texas-012236314.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/censorship-concerns-rise-over-tex... Looks like banning books in school is not enough, now they want to ban the sale of some books.

heavyset_go 2y ago
> Looks like banning books in school is not enough, now they want to ban the sale of some books. The irony, and insincerity, in this is ripe because book ban proponents would scream that they weren't "book bans" because they only wanted to ban books at school and not elsewhere. Turns out they want to ban books everywhere, just like their critics said.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Standard prohibitionist playbook: Get your foot in the door by at first claiming an agreeable, limited scope, and then slowly expand to universal prohibition.
  - gruez 2y ago
    So the opponents to "common sense gun legislation" have a point?
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Absolutely. Same playbook.
thatfrenchguy 2y ago
Conservatives have always been like this, talking about small government while wanting a nanny state controlling what you can do and read

codeddesign 2y ago

It drives me crazy when people make argument like this without pointing to the actual legislation. https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/HB1375/2025 https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/HB1375/2025 After reading the bill, I don’t see the argument. The bill is around expanding the current laws involving directly selling or distributing media to minors where not only the business but also the employee would be held responsible.

aiforecastthway 2y ago
> It drives me crazy when people make argument like this without pointing to the actual legislation. The first sentence of the article reads "A bill set to be heard by the Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee at the Texas House is sparking criticism from small business owners across the state. ". The text "Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee" is a hyperlink. That hyperlink takes you to the bill tracker. > After reading the bill, I don’t see the argument. Introducing civil liability has a chilling effect on commerce (and, therefore, speech). From the article: "The biggest concern that we have is that for small businesses, first of all, we can’t afford the lawsuits."
- codeddesign 2y ago
  Again…I don’t see the argument. There are already laws at federal and state levels..in every state. Are you saying that while a company would be responsible (current laws), an employee should not because of free speech?? (proposed law)
  - fweimer 2y ago
    It's not entirely clear, but the bill may try to extend liability to the first sale (or even earlier) also in cases where this sale wasn't to a minor (however a minor gained access subsequently). That would be quite different from existing law, wouldn't it?
  - aiforecastthway 2y ago
    > Are you saying that while a company would be responsible (current laws), an employee should not because of free speech?? (proposed law) Absolutely. Circumscribing liability in civil actions is one of the fundamental purposes of commercial legal structures; to wit, the two L's in "LLC" stand for "Limited Liability". The basic principle of limited liability has been deeply embedded in the USA's system of free commerce since its founding. Historically, there has always been a high bar for exceptions to this general principle. I think that should still be the case. I have two reasons for this. The first is selfish. The legal exposure risked by an hourly employee working at a bookstore would be far too great to justify the wages earned. The lines of "obscenity" are blurry enough that the risk to any employee would be substantial. If the business chose to indemnify their employees and owners -- which they likely would need to do in order to employ anyone -- then that indemnification would be part of a larger legal insurance policy. I do not own a book store, but I do own a large stake in a business. I carry a legal insurance policy (actually, two). These bookstores are probably part of the same risk pool that I'm buying into. Which means that if some random Karen is angry that a character in a book had two moms, my insurance premiums get to pay for that bullshit. The second reason is more principled. The intent of the proposed exception is to establish a statutory framework that would allow conservative religious groups to use civil courts to harass their ideological enemies. I do not find common cause with that purpose, because I do not believe in bullying people into silence via the State's courts, because I am a proud American. BTW: if the employee's actions are criminal, then the state can already prosecute that individual employee. Allowing private civil actions is extraneous, unless the ultimate goal is coercive or political. Weaponizing our system of commerce to wage culture wars was a bad idea when the intolerant left was doing it a decade ago, it was a bad idea when the intolerant evangelical right was doing in two decades ago, and it is a bad idea now that the new right is doing it.

flufluflufluffy 2y ago

Ah yes, the same people calling others snowflakes saying their children are going to be “harmed” by a book

BurningFrog 2y ago

Note that this is a bill from a single legislator that no one else is known to support. > With only one author and no co-sponsors so far, Goodwin doubts it will even reach the House floor.

olyjohn 2y ago
That means it she perfect time to throw it back in that legislators face before it goes any further. You can't just ignore these non-starter bills. They will just try tweak it every year until it passes.
sdenton4 2y ago
Meanwhile the free speech absolutists at the top of the federal government are ctrl-f deleting anything containing words they don't like...

ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago

[flagged]

pascoej 2y ago

Growing up, my school couldn't afford paper for math worksheets while building the most expensive high school football stadium. There are definitely some priorities in Texas.

sabslikesobs 2y ago

I observe that the letter of the law intends to severely restrict pornographic materials from being made available to minors: see "harmful content" [1] and obscenity [2] definitions for the state of Texas. Realistically however, fringe content and the risk of misinterpretations of the law place a huge burden on the distributors of any kind of media, where they could be at risk for a suit at any time. This seems to point towards the need for age-checks at the book store, just to quash all possiblities---which is absurd since community-sourced content like tiktok is already so much worse for them, and that's not half as restricted! [1]: https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-43-24/ https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-43-24/ [2]: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/pe/htm/pe.43.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/pe/htm/pe.43.htm