“Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable.”
They are correct. That is censorship. It’s basically the definition of censorship. Note that they said “because we or others believe their message is objectionable.” So no, they do not have to carry every book in the world (although they damn well nearly do.) But to REMOVE a book because others find it objectionable is basically what people mean by censorship.
I do know that some definitions require the censor to be an official of some kind, but that’s kind of a red herring. Even the Hays Code wouldn’t be considered censorship by that narrow definition. In which case it’s just semantic soup. So we say, fine, it’s not censorship. It’s “cemsorship,” a word I made up that means exactly the same thing as what censorship means to most people. A de facto censorship by mass media and other industries.
Why would I feel any less charitably about it than a manual dedicted to teaching people how to molest my children?
Lot’s of books describe how to commit crimes. There are books that tell you how to grow weed, make pipe bombs and cheat on your taxes too. It’s not my job to stop anyone from buying or selling them.
Some people define censorship as a government action only. Only a government can prevent something from being sold everywhere, thru laws or regulation. A private organization has control of only its own actions and cannot “censor” the actions of others – it can try to influence it, but it doesn’t have absolute control.
Others define censorship more broadly as anyone who prevents a product from being sold by their own non-governmental group.
In between these two defs we have defacto censorship, where a large outfit like Amazon or Wal-Mart can’t prevent others from selling something, but if they don’t carry it, it becomes hard to obtain because of the limited market remaining.
Depends on how you define “censorship”, and whether you consider ALL censorship automatically bad. We all practice censorship in one form or another. (In this case, as the OP pointed out, Amazon is censoring itself)
when you start your own company you are free to sell books on how to molest your family. You are not, however, obligated to sell the books.
For you to actually call someone objecting to this a nanny is retarded. There is no argument you can make regarding freedom of speech that doesn’t include the freedom to object to the promotion of child molestation. There is also no argument you can make that a business is obligated to sell anything they don’t want to sell.
He’s not saying that they shouldn’t have the right to sell whatever they please and he’s not saying that people shouldn’t have the right to protest whatever they please. He’s saying that people who go out of their way to attempt to dictate what other people should or should not read are douchebags and I’m inclined to agree.
This continues to be an irrelevant point in this thread since nobody has said anybody is obligated to do anything.
No one said they don’t have that freedom. I’m just saying they’re douchebags.
No such position has been taken by anybody in this thread. I am not making any argument about rights or obligations. I am saying that people who go out of their way to involve themselves in what kind of books other people are buying and selling are douchebags – not criminals, just dickholes.
The only thing needed for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. The book is immoral. Objecting to it’s sale should be as normal as breathing. How you don’t understand this is mind boggling.
Oh boy…A few years ago I used to lurk at a forum for girllovers and boylovers (had a abnormal psych/ car crash interest in it) , and EVERYONE there was like " our boy" (oh it doesnt hurt them, they can consent)