3 ms·

You're confusing censorship with boycotting. I don't care if his book gets published...just by nobody I do business with.

by gregd 13y ago

bmelton 13y ago
I really don't think I am. The actions of the petitioners (or at least the threats thereof, whether or not they were made) could have been seen as boycotting, at some point, in the future, but the actions of Kickstarter terminating an already funded project and refunding the donated moneys is a notion far closer to censorship than to boycotting.
- gregd 13y ago
  Kickstarter isn't censoring anybody. They don't have a military to enforce the censorship. They didn't refund the money. They made a donation to RAINN instead. The POS still gets to publish his book and the backers still get their copy. There is no censorship in saying, you don't get to use my platform for that.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    From Wikipedia: "Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body." Kickstarter exercising their control to restrict the publication of this material meets the clinical definition of censorship, even though they aren't the government. Again, I'm not saying that it wasn't within their rights to do so; it was, but being within their right doesn't make it something else. You are right, however. I misread the statement that the project was defunded as that the moneys had been returned. The statement that they make though, at least to me, indicates that they would have defunded the project if they hadn't missed the window. If that was their intent, I am no less saddened by it. If their actual intent was to miss the window on purpose, and then issue this apology, I am no less saddened by it.
    - gregd 13y ago
      I would argue that with MANY other publishing platforms available to the public, Kickstarter is NOT a "controlling body". Regardless, I believe wholeheartedly that censorship by the government is utterly and completely wrong, I don't believe that in this particular circumstance, it's appropriate to cry "censorship".

You're confusing censorship with boycotting. I don't care if his book gets published...just by nobody I do business with.

by gregd 13y ago

You're confusing censorship with boycotting. I don't care if his book gets published...just by nobody I do business with.

bmelton 13y ago

I really don't think I am. The actions of the petitioners (or at least the threats thereof, whether or not they were made) could have been seen as boycotting, at some point, in the future, but the actions of Kickstarter terminating an already funded project and refunding the donated moneys is a notion far closer to censorship than to boycotting.

gregd 13y ago
Kickstarter isn't censoring anybody. They don't have a military to enforce the censorship. They didn't refund the money. They made a donation to RAINN instead. The POS still gets to publish his book and the backers still get their copy. There is no censorship in saying, you don't get to use my platform for that.
- bmelton 13y ago
  From Wikipedia: "Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body." Kickstarter exercising their control to restrict the publication of this material meets the clinical definition of censorship, even though they aren't the government. Again, I'm not saying that it wasn't within their rights to do so; it was, but being within their right doesn't make it something else. You are right, however. I misread the statement that the project was defunded as that the moneys had been returned. The statement that they make though, at least to me, indicates that they would have defunded the project if they hadn't missed the window. If that was their intent, I am no less saddened by it. If their actual intent was to miss the window on purpose, and then issue this apology, I am no less saddened by it.
  - gregd 13y ago
    I would argue that with MANY other publishing platforms available to the public, Kickstarter is NOT a "controlling body". Regardless, I believe wholeheartedly that censorship by the government is utterly and completely wrong, I don't believe that in this particular circumstance, it's appropriate to cry "censorship".