6 ms·

I don't respect this. I acknowledge that as it is their playground they can make this kind of judgement call, however I have always believed that freedom of spe

• loumf 13y ago
  "Freedom of speech" is a limit on the government, not on private companies.
  • maxerickson 13y ago
    As usually codified in law. There is plenty of room for people to believe that rights to speech should enjoy greater protections (I don't mean to defend that position, I mean to acknowledge it).
• Dylan16807 13y ago
  They are refusing to organize payment to these things. They aren't 'banning' them in the sense you're talking about. I find your comparison offensive. You're twisting the meaning of the word 'ban'.
• azar1 13y ago
  I see no denial of the author's freedom of speech here. The author is free to host and fund their misogynist drivel on their own server, and Kickstarter doesn't seem to be denying that. Kickstarter has a business to run, and has some semblance of ethics, so it has chosen to refuse to offer its service to this content.
• shiftpgdn 13y ago
  Two things: One. Freedom of speech is a first amendment right to protect you from censorship by the government and the government only. Anyone, anywhere running their own service is fully within their rights to boot you off. Two. A sleazy pickup artist book isn't anywhere remotely near any previous works of banned art. I would consider something as awful the film Cannibal Holocaust to be fine art before I used that term for some idiotic kickstarted pick up artist book.
  • Anderkent 13y ago
    Freedom of speech as defined in US law and freedom of speech as liberty we value are not necessarily the same. While it's not illegal to boot someone from a private service for expressing opinions you disagree with it, it still may be wrong.
  • apendleton 13y ago
    Not sure I agree with the parent poster, but I think he/she is well aware of the distinction you're drawing, and says so up front. Certainly, legal freedom-of-speech protections don't require Kickstarter to host any particular content. But Kickstarter can still espouse freedom of speech as a value they try to uphold in their practices, even if they're under no legal obligation to do so. I think as more and more of our online interactions move to hosted platforms, we have to decide as a society whether or not we want the hosts of those platforms to police our speech. Those spaces can either be free-speech spaces or safe spaces, but probably not both, and there's a legitimate discussion about societal norms to be had about where we want that balance to fall, independent of this particular rather-icky example (and let's face it: most examples that bring this discussion to light are probably going to be icky).
    • effbott 13y ago
      How far do you take this? Kickstarter is a business and needs to make money. Should it be acceptable for people to Kickstart escort businesses, "legal high" websites, or Amway pyramid schemes? All of those things are legal but are seen by the public as being slimy and taboo. Why would Kickstarter want to associate with these people?
• wmeredith 13y ago
  Freedom of Speech goes out the window when you start dealing with private enterprise. Kickstarter doesn't have the power to "ban" anything more than you or I. They're just addressing the kind of content they don't want to be promoting, which is totally within their rights.
  • Apocryphon 13y ago
    It's pretty hilarious when libertarians and believers in unfettered free enterprise cry foul against corporations and businesses for having content standards.
    • gradys 13y ago
      Are you of the opinion that all libertarians think this way? None of the ones I know would fail to understand this.
      • Apocryphon 13y ago
        I'm only referring to the specific ones who would be against Kickstarter's decision by arguments that it "violates free speech." Not all minarchists.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  • dspeyer 13y ago
    There don't seem to be any direct competitors to kickstarter, so when kickstarter chooses to ban something from their site, they ban it from getting kickstarted. Just because they don't use violence doesn't mean they don't have power, or that their power doesn't come with responsibility.
    • jmduke 13y ago
      There are lots of competitors to kickstarter, such as http://www.indiegogo.com/ http://www.indiegogo.com/. Hell, the idea of a kickstarter isn't exactly difficult to replicate: we've seen many, many sites (App.Net and Soylent among them) 'roll their own'.
• lclarkmichalek 13y ago
  They're not banning anything. They're banning it from their platform. They don't get to say "You can't publish that", but they do get to say "You can't publish that in collaboration with us". There is nothing stopping the author of this work to raise funds via alternate means, which is much as it has always been. I imagine most all controversial works have had problems getting published, but I don't think people cry out "censorship" whenever a publisher rejects a work on vaguely moral grounds.
• atwebb 13y ago
  I see exactly where you're coming from but KickStarter isn't the only outlet, there are plenty of others available. It's murky water to tread anytime you start excluding groups but you also have to preserve the community that you build and do what you believe to be correct for it. The owners and admins of KickStarter are stewards of that community and have a duty to it. If, after very careful consideration, it is deemed that this material would hurt this particular group then it's fine by me if they stopped it. The creatives will go elsewhere because there are other places (this is key). Random House doesn't get into the business of publishing books on many different subjects but plenty of other publishers do.
• deleted 13y ago
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• bmelton 13y ago
  I've been tweeting jeers to @DoSomething (the group that garnered the petition) and kudos to Perry Chen and Kickstarter for not having ceded to censorship. To be fair, the book is ugly. The passages quoted are disgusting. I would never buy this book, nor endorse that anyone else buy this book. If asked, I would state that I think the book is disgusting and that you probably should not buy it. What is even more disgusting to me is the very popular idea that its manufacture should have been censored. While we may each be able to judge for ourselves that this book does or does not (for me, it does not) have any artistic value, none of us is capable of making that decision for the others, and certainly not for everybody else. I'm somewhat saddened to see Kickstarter's apology for this reason, and I am disgusted that the project was canned altogether. But worse than all of that, I am deeply, deeply troubled that so many young people were so eager to jump on the censorship bandwagon.
  • fusiongyro 13y ago
    You have kind of a funny idea of censorship. Kickstarter can't stop the book from being made, and authors are certainly not owed assistance by Kickstarter or anyone else to get their work published. It's actually never been easier to get books published and there's certainly no actual censorship happening here. The only role Kickstarter plays is aggregating funds. The author is not limited from pursuing that goal through other means.
    • bmelton 13y ago
      You're absolutely right. It was within Kickstarter's rights to defund the work, or to disallow the project, or to impose whatever burdens their whimsy could think up. Nor are they the government, from which the first amendment is intended to protect us. The author, meanwhile, is of course free to publish the book in whatever other means he chooses. That doesn't make it any more right in my book, and sets up a dangerous precedent that Kickstarter will now subject themselves to the whims of whichever populist group can be the most vocal.
      • fusiongyro 13y ago
• fusiongyro 13y ago
  I think you're conflating the right to promote something abhorrent with permission to promote something abhorrent in my space. There are many examples of rights which can be exercised to perpetrate moral wrongs. Kickstarter isn't capable of impeding that. They are, however, well within _their_ rights to revoke access to _their_ mechanism. Kickstater is, ultimately, a business, and they've decided they will make more money by doing a little of their own policing. If what's best for art isn't what's best for Kickstarter, expect them to do what's best for Kickstarter. If someone can compete with them by doing what's best for art instead, more power to them.
• effbott 13y ago
  Kickstarter is a business and has no obligation to uphold free speech. They need to curate their projects to protect their reputation. What if they allowed filmakers to Kickstart porn movies? You could call it free speech and make no judgments about the act itself, but at the end of the day people would start to see Kickstarter as a slimy business that's willing to host any project as long as they get a cut of it.
  • tbirdz 13y ago
    Somewhat related: There's another site called http://offbeatr.com/ http://offbeatr.com/ which is like Kickstarter, except it is exclusively for porn, sex toys, erotic art/literature/games, and other such adult projects. I don't know if they are perceived as "slimy" or not, but there are a lot of interesting, innovative projects on offbeatr.
• brudgers 13y ago
  Kickstarter is simply selecting with whom they choose to enter into a contractual agreement. So long as they do so in a way which is not illegally discriminatory, they are within their right. Likewise, the potential counterparties to an agreement with Kickstarter are free to choose not to enter into a contract with Kickstarter.
• dkokelley 13y ago
  A couple of points: 1) The project creator has freedom of speech to a point. For one, he cannot yell "Fire" in a crowded theater unless there actually is a fire. He also cannot advocate or call for illegal activity by others (such as "Go and mug that guy walking down the street"). This is where the line of protected speech gets blurred. Reading some excerpts from his works it's clear that he advocates for aggressive physical/sexual contact with or without permission, to the point of making the woman struggle to rebuff advances. Basically this is borderline sexual assault depending on how good of a lawyer you have. 2) Whether or not it is within the project creator's right to publish this as free speech, Kickstarter has their own interests in mind. By facilitating funding for this project, they may open themselves to legal liability if someone going by the guidelines set in the book does end up sexually assaulting someone. To address what I see as the core of your comment, I agree that an old fashion book burning / banning is not the answer. Just understand that this work dances the line between protected and unprotected speech, and Kickstarter does not want to play a part in that. Also understand that there is a significant difference between Kickstarter not allowing a certain project (or class of projects), and the government declaring a topic to be unpublishable. IANAL, so everything I'm saying comes from one vague semester of business law.
  • iandanforth 13y ago
    1) I think you may be incorrect about the advocating of illegal acts thing, but neither am I a lawyer so lets agree on "they could get sued out of existence." Totally valid. 2)A larger point is that the public/private divide is a false dichotomy. We have our lives and we want to be able to express ourselves. So my point is that the difference between the government and kickstarter banning something is one of degree but not in kind. It is a restriction on expression within a space. Granted, a much smaller space.
    • dkokelley 13y ago
      You may be correct on 1), but take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio There are a few tests that have to be met. The key piece is "The Court held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is directed to inciting, and is likely to incite, imminent lawless action." On point 2), I still think there is a clear difference in kind between government and private entity bans. The government can enforce their bans with legal threat of violence (i.e. You can go to prison). Another point of distinction is that within private spaces there may be implicit endorsement by the private space owner. For instance you have the public right to promote a political candidate, but if you do it by planting a sign on my lawn, it is implied that I endorse that candidate. I may not want to make that endorsement and restrict you from posting your sign, but that is not nearly the same as the government saying "No one may publish endorsements for Communist Party members".