

Even More Amazon Censorship - Bud
http://jamthecat.blogspot.com/2010/12/boycott-amazoncom.html

======
pragmatic
I think we've gone a little crazy with the censorship word. This guy can print
his book somewhere else and distribute it.

Amazon (a private company) has decided they don't want these books on it's
platform (for whatever reason).

Now if the gov't said Amazon had to take these down, that's a problem. But
that's not what happened.

~~~
nopal
It's still censorship, and some would prefer not to support businesses that
arbitrarily censor speech.

~~~
middlegeek
"Censorship is suppression of speech or other communication which may be
considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general
body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other
controlling body."

It's not censorship.

~~~
jerf
You're not playing the "cite a definition" game correctly. You neglected to
include the reference to the presumably-a-dictionary you used. How am I
supposed to go back to the same work, cite another subdefinition that has
about a 50-50 chance of actually applying, and then argue that I'm correct
while simultaneously invoking some half-assed "Amazon is really a newspaper,
or maybe something involving cars" metaphor? The Internet has a well defined
protocol for this dance!

Anyhow, trying to shut things down by definition only works in mathematics.
Redefining away what Amazon as "not censorship" won't mollify anybody, as they
can still choose to be legitimately annoyed at the perfectly legal and
arguably perfectly ethical actions Amazon have taken. Acting legally and even
ethically doesn't mean you have the right to not be criticized.

And, seeing as how if this is "not censorship" we don't actually have an
English word for what it is... yeah, it's censorship. It's not government
censorship, but it's censorship. It's also a sufficiently different kind of
censorship that simply knee-jerk applying our attitudes towards government
censorship may not be relevant, but English simply doesn't have the
granularity to deal with this. That's OK. _Everything_ works that way anyhow.

~~~
middlegeek
The first result on a Google search, but feel free to pick your favorite as
the test still stands:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=censorship&ie=utf-8&o...](http://www.google.com/search?q=censorship&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&client=firefox-a)

Amazon is a media outlet but they are not suppressing his speech. They are not
stopping him from publishing the work or even stopping him from writing it.
They are choosing not to distribute it. Thus the suppression test fails and it
is not censorship.

------
bambax
It is censorship.

It's not enough to say that "it's a private company, it should be left to do
as it pleases" (as the counter-argument goes). In many other domains there are
rules enforcing general principles, _especially for private companies_.
Employment is one of them.

A company cannot say "since, as a private company I should be free to make my
own employment policies, I'll just engage in race discrimination".

Just the same, the First amendment should be enforced for private companies.

If your business is helping anyone publish content, then it should not be
possible for you to filter out content or authors based on your own private
rules/opinions.

Anything that's legal is acceptable -- and the legality is decided by a court
of law.

I'm quite optimistic we'll get there eventually, but it'll take time and
effort.

------
skymt
I think the pedophile-guide incident has Amazon paranoid. Amazon has a huge
task ahead of it in both shifting the publishing world to e-books and
maintaining their lead in that market. They decided they can't afford negative
publicity right now: unfortunate, but entirely understandable.

------
middlegeek
This isn't censorship. They are not suppressing his speech, they are choosing
not to disseminate it.

Another thing, if the title of your book talks about raping someone, some
people are going to find it offensive and some businesses are not going to
want to put it on their shelves.

------
jbillingsley
Now you can see why the government wants to privatize everything. If it's a
private institution they can infringe upon your rights however they like.

~~~
steveklabnik
Upvoted. Corporations are regulated significantly less, and as they become
more and more powerful, it becomes more important to pay attention to what
they're doing.

> Italian Fascism and most other fascist movements promote a corporatist
> economy whereby, in theory, representatives of capital and labour interest
> groups work together within sectoral corporations to create both harmonious
> labour relations and maximization of production that would serve the
> national interest. - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facism>

(EDIT: I do take small issue with 'governments wanting to privatize.' I don't
think the government does at all. Other interests, yes. The point still
stands.)

------
pmichaud
Based on the titles alone I was tempted to side with Amazon on this, but if
you read further, you find that these are novels that probably have redeeming
value. I don't know about the quality of writing, but the content isn't any
more pornographic than a romance novel or slasher flick.

~~~
VMG
I think this is the subject of the discussion:

[http://www.buy.com/prod/how-to-rape-a-straight-
guy/q/loc/106...](http://www.buy.com/prod/how-to-rape-a-straight-
guy/q/loc/106/207510301.html)

> Curt has been beaten, betrayed and brutalized by just about everyone he's
> known. And his mother - once a prostitute, now "born-again" and married -
> has banned him from the family. But six years in prison taught him a lot -
> including how to force straight cons to ejaculate as he rapes them, and how
> that can be a very satisfying method of revenge. Now he's out and trying to
> stay straight, but problems with his marriage and zero prospects of earning
> money enough to live on make that almost impossible. It's while he's
> hustling two gay men in a bar one afternoon that he mentions what he's done
> in prison. . .and the bet comes up.It seems the men, Wayne and Lenny, want a
> little revenge of their own against someone who's caused them trouble. If
> Curt can make this one "straight" guy "get off" while being assaulted,
> they'll give him a car, cash and a chance at a new life. Being in the mood
> to do some damage, Curt agrees and they start laying their plans. But step-
> by-step, Curt realizes things are getting out of control, and he has no one
> to pull him back from the abyss. And a stupid little bet is threatening to
> plunge him headlong into disaster.

------
Bud
It's not going to be a good world if Fox News is allowed to intimidate Amazon
into censoring whatever it finds inappropriate.

Not at all.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
Amazon doesn't care what Fox News says, they're doing this because it makes
good economic sense. More people will be angry at Amazon for them selling it
than there will be those angered at its removal.

So Risk > Reward.

And anyways wouldn't Fox News be the one defending the guy? They seem to
always take the tea party side which the author would almost certainly be on.

------
angrycoder
> "How To Rape A Straight Guy" has a very provocative title, yes

I would say it did its job of provoking then.

