You mean extremes like literally burning books [1], or banning a broad category of books from the largest bookstore in the world for ideological reasons [2], or using copyright to censor the most popular American children's author [3]?
I'm against censorship, and I think banning books from school libraries is ridiculous [4]. But a single school district in Texas banning a book is not really comparable with the scale and significance of the corporate/woke censorship.
[3]: Guardian: "It's a moral decision': Dr Seuss books are being 'recalled' not cancelled, expert says" https://archive.fo/SPBMh
[4]: A school library has limited space, and obviously can't hold all the books in the world, so the librarian have to make a choice. But selection should be based on things like what the students would like to read, exposure to a broad diversity of views, etc. instead of ideology.
It's disingenuous to use the Dr. Seuss example, since it was his delegated agents who made the decision. The way it's worded in your post - "using copyright to censor" doesn't reflect the fact that his estate chose to do this, on their own, using their uncontested property rights. What could represent freedom more than that?
I am not sure that I follow. I think "using copyright" does imply that it is done by the copyright holders. I disagree that it being done by the copyright holders makes it a non-issue.
There are other examples of using copyright for censorship. The infamous book by the mustache man was prevented from being reprinted in Germany until 2016 by the copyright holder (Bavaria's state government) [1]. Use of DMCA notices by corporations to suppress disparaging news about security vulnerabilities is another example.
Do you believe these are not instances of censorship?
> I disagree that it being done by the copyright holders makes it a non-issue.
Not the GP, but I assume they meant that it being done by the copyright holders makes it a non-issue in terms of censorship: Censorship is something that's done to copyright holders. What they themselves do is something else.
[EDIT:] So, yes, I would say at least your Knausgaard -- oops, no, the other guy with a similarly-named book -- example is not censorship. Something similar, but not quite the same thing. [/EDIT]
I don't think censorship really has much to do with copyright. A book can certainly be in public domain, and still be censored.
It is mostly about infringing the restricting the ability of individuals to choose what they would like to read, hear, and watch; and also infringing their right to free expression.
:-) On the topic of the book by he-who-must-not-be-named, I beg to differ. The intention is quite clear, copyright is just the means to achieve it.
Here is a Gedankenexperiment: assume that there is a jurisdiction in which the state, instead of the estate [1], automatically becomes the copyright holder after the author of a work passes away. [2] If the state starts making rules on which books by dead authors cannot be published, wouldn't you call it censorship?
[1]: Sorry for the a-maize-ingly corny and unfunny dad joke, couldn't resist.
[2]: This is not too far fetched, apparently this is roughly what has happened with you-know-what in Bavaria.
I just think "censorship" means something directed at whoever is trying to say something a la "I've been censored!". Trying to stop people from hearing a message without a specific sender, that's just "out there", is somethnig slightly different so IMO it should also be called something different. "Suppression (of ideas)", perhaps? Something like that.
But yeah, I agree: Let's not mention Kn***rd's name again.
What’s the difference between something like the Dr. Seuss issue, and an estate not releasing something written in the first place? Neither seem remotely close to censorship to me, but I’m curious if you think the key difference is revoking access to something once released.
They've got two parts: individual freedom to do what you want with the property, and control over what other people can do with the property
More freedom would mean anyone can do what they want with the property, eg if somebody wants to read or copy the book, they can, regardless of what the author says
My perspective is that this concept of "freedom" is so vague as to be useless. EG, for property rights, my freedom to decide how others use my creation vs. other people's freedom to use my creation. It's just a word that has lost all meaning, especially in the US.
I’m unconvinced book banning is as big a deal on the left. The one example you bring up was apparently attacked across the board in Canada and the other two are non government institutions, the last one literally being the family of the author.
Maybe more importantly though I’m unconvinced that book restrictions are actually universally illegitimate, but certainly some motivations are. If as the article claims it is mostly multicultural books being attacked despite similar books in terms of sex being left alone, then that is worse than books being restricted because people feel they’re racist because racism is bad. I would for example completely support restricting middle schoolers access to books supporting “race science” at least without the proper context being provided
I think you are correct in implying that the current wave of censorship is mostly non-governmental, but that doesn't make it look any better in my eyes. This is a discussion about culture, not who has the legal right to do what. Banning "inappropriate" books from school is most likely legal in the US [1], but that doesn't automatically make puritanism and prudishness good.
I disagree, I think book restrictions are Orwellian, but that's another discussion.
[1] - Those books shouldn't have been destroyed and this was widely decried. Quote at the bottom of your article from one of the authors of a destroyed book was interesting though.
>André Noël, a Quebec journalist, noted on Twitter that his book, Trafic chez les Hurons, published in 2000, was among those removed from shelves. In a Twitter thread, Noël wrote in French that the removal of his book “surprises me and seems excessive.”
“But I fear that this controversy will distract us from the real scandal, which we have not yet fully measured: the destruction of Indigenous lands and the oppression of Indigenous peoples by Europeans and their descendants, including in Canada and in Quebec,” he wrote.
[2] - Private company can sell what they want.
[3] - Private company can create whatever products they want.
[4] - The argument in the article is that there are marginalized students who want to read these books.
On (1), that quote is quite irrelevant to the current discussion, and I don't want to get into that. I'm glad that we all agree that burning books should be condemned.
On (2) and (3), neither of these are true in reality, and most don't think they should be true either.
Even if you are an extremely principled libertarian, I am sure that you don't think that every single thing a "private" entity does is inherently good. We, the "private" citizens, certainly can (and should) criticize their actions.
On (4), as I said in my comment, I very much disagree with the prudish/ideological banning of the book from school libraries, so I guess we agree on that?
Are you advocating that private companies have to sell and produce items they don't want to? Amazon doesn't want to sell those items and the copyright holder of Dr. Seuss doesn't want to create them. Are you saying the government should force them to sell and produce those products?
I simply think Amazon should not censor books, and people who are against censorship should try pressuring them into not doing that.
As for government intervention, at least for the case of Amazon banning books, it seems practically infeasible to me. Large and vociferous factions of the ruling class do want censorship, and Amazon et al are doing it in part to appease them.
For social media censorship, there might be a better chance of effective regulation, as probably more people care about it than banned books.
The outrage regarding the Dr Seuss issue baffles me. The decision was made by the rightholders of the work since the author is dead. There was no public pressure that forced their hand. There was no sizable conversation about this issue until the decision was already made by the rightsholders.
How is the right-wing viewpoint seemingly that the author shouldn't have the right to be able to stop the publishing of their own work? Is it censorship because I can't buy JD Salinger's The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls because he didn't want it published until 50 years after his death?
They certainly have the legal right, but I think it is still censorship. See my other comment for other examples of censorship by copyright: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29729059
I do not know much about the case of Salinger's book, but it seems a bit different as apparently he withdrew the story before publication, it was done by the author himself, and the intention does not seem to be ideological. [1][2]
[2]: I think the ideological intention does kinda matter, e.g. curation of the books in the school libraries is inevitable (unless we abolish copyright and make them all a portal to libgen :-)) and is not censorship. But it _is_ censorship when it is driven by ideology.
> They certainly have the legal right, but I think it is still censorship.
Because you have been fooled. Seuss’s estate decided to cease printing some of his lowest selling books, cited some problematic elements as a justification, and conservative media decided to manufacture a wedge issue out of it. Could they updated those elements? Sure. Seuss himself did at least once. But why bother? They were among his lowest selling books. Books fall out of print all the time.
Not really, they most likely did it for ideological/virtue-signalling reasons. You are right in that they probably did it in a way that would hurt their profits the least.
Their statement [1] explicitly says they are doing it after consulting a "panel of experts, including educators". A few days earlier, a school district in Virginia had decided to stop reading Seuss’s books on Dr. Seuss Day. [2] Some school boards in Canada outright banned his books. [3] I think some people lost their jobs because of protesting these in off-color Facebook posts. After the prices for used copies of the books skyrocketed, eBay delisted them. [4] Biden avoided using the author's name in his Dr. Seuss Day statement [5]. Don't you find all of these a tad suspiciously Orwellian?
Also, FYI, I don't really appreciate your personal attack there.
[2]: CP24 (Republished from CNN): "Publisher to stop printing six Dr. Seuss books because they perpeturate racial stereotypes" https://archive.ph/HOhAw
So there's a "Read Across America" day, and you consider the very act of not reading Dr. Seuss on that day Orwellian? What is they read Dr. Seuss every other year—is that worth 0.5 Orwells? Are there any other authors that must be read on that day to keep our Orwell-o-Meter down? I agree we should never go full Orwell, but as long as we keep it below 0.66666 Orwells (repeating, obviously), I think we should be safe.
Except that "Read Across America" is Dr. Seuss's birthday, and "Dr. Seuss Day" is the other common name for it? And, what about the rest of the events?
I think you are merely trolling, and not really arguing in good faith. In that case, I'm done replying to you here. Wish you a happy new year, and have no scruples: we all gonna end up loving the Big Brother anyway :-)
You are making a distinction here between the author of the work and the rightsholder. Are you suggesting part of the reason for the backlash is that the author should be granted extra rights over their work which can't be transferred to a third party? Because that isn't a particularly right-wing view either.
suggesting that anything that mentions "both sides" as having a problem is a reductionist argument, is itself a reductionist argument, and a major logical fallacy. It is perfectly possible for there to be issues that affect "both sides" to either different or equal extent, and an extreme position that one of those sides has on some other issue is irrelevant. Just think about which "side" is worse on the drug war and the incredible damage it has caused? If you come up with an answer of "which side" is worse, does that mean that everything the other side did is totally cool, totally non-destructive, etc? Of course not.
sorry for the lecture, but this argument is one of the few that triggers the hell out of me. the other one is, "I don't care about privacy violations because I'm not doing anything wrong"
I didn't say extreme positions since that is subjective. One side is using tactics like creating laws that let a state legislature overturn the Presidential vote; the other side is not doing that.
What do voting laws have to do with the problem of outrage circulating on social media, or the harm caused by the drug war, etc? If you want to argue that "both sides" are not equally bad on voting rights, I would agree (with the caveat that I've not researched that issue so could certainly encounter information that changed my mind), but that seems entirely irrelevant to the question of whether both sides are equally bad when it comes to circulating outrage on social media
The issue is that you see one side versus the other, like the US is a football and two rival teams are fighting for possession of it. I mean, that might seem to be the case but it shouldn't be competitive, it needs to be co-operative.
Authoritarian people are going to find ways to be authoritarian no matter their political persuasion.
Both sides can be a fallacy--but it isn't always. But I think its very reasonable to conclude "both sides" are engaging in social media mobs, censorship, and cancel culture. Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird are on the list of most "challenged" books for 2020 because they upset liberal sensibilities. It's not just a right wing problem.
What is your definition of "challenged"? I believe the liberal position is not to ban those books from libraries, but that there are newer books that can replace those books in the classroom.
“Both sides” just provides cover for the really heinous side. Anything that categorizes evil and really-really-evil into the same bucket, benefits really-really-evil the most.
It *can* be used to do that. But there is nothing inherent in that.
And hardcore partisans always think the other sides is the really-really-really-evil side and they are on the side of angels. So your line of thinking can be used to justify bad behavior because the other side is worse.
