Amazon Censorship Expands

[eppythacher]

Now, it seems that the censorship is expanding to m/m gay fiction if it contains the magic word 'rape' in the title. Just how far is this going to be allowed to proceed in relative silence, and who is pushing these sudden decisions on Amazon's part?"

"How To Rape A Straight Guy" has a very provocative title, yes, and its narrator, Curt, is a very in-your-face sort of guy who thinks he can get even with the world by assaulting men. But it winds up hurting innocent people and destroying him. I even have a moment of foreshadowing in it, where Curt as a 6-year-old boy watches a cousin of his torture a dog until it bites him, then the boy's father kills the dog and goes off to buy another one. The moral of the whole book being, if you treat a man like a dog his whole life, you shouldn't be surprised if he bites you. And the sad reality is, when he finally does bite back, he's the one who's punished. Does that sound like porn?

"Rape In Holding Cell 6", both volumes, is about corruption in the judicial system, and its main character, Antony, is investigating the brutal rape and murder of his lover in the county jail. He finds a legal and political system that thinks it can get away with anything and nearly drives himself insane in his quest for revenge, a quest that threatens to harm the innocent as well as the guilty as he becomes exactly what he hates. Does that sound like porn?

Here's the definition of Censorship from Wikipedia:

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.

Don't trust Wikipedia? Here's Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary's definition of the word censor:

To examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable

[Elfwreck]

The key issue isn't what Amazon does or doesn't allow in titles--it's that nowhere in its content/submission guidelines does it say "Here's a list of words you cannot use in book titles."

The author was told the the book was removed for violating Amazon's guidelines for content in book titles, but those guidelines don't say what is and isn't allowed.

[HarryT]

This is a very silly discussion. Amazon are a private corporation; they are perfectly at liberty to choose to sell or not to sell any product they want, and certainly don't have to justify their decisions to anybody. Nobody has a "right" to have their book sold by Amazon.

[gtriever]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is a very silly discussion. Amazon are a private corporation; they are perfectly at liberty to choose to sell or not to sell any product they want, and certainly don't have to justify their decisions to anybody. Nobody has a "right" to have their book sold by Amazon.

Absolutely correct, but does anybody want to start an over/under on how much this will be "debated" in this thread?

[mr ploppy]

More fallout from the hysteria over the pedo book. Either Amazon's share price fell off a cliff when news of that broke, or some moral minority group on a crusade is putting pressure on them. It will be interesting to see how far this goes, and whether it will spread out of the sex books into other genres of fiction.

[Worldwalker]

I'm rather curious how hot the water will have to get before the frog jumps.

[eppythacher]

What's the US law on selling? If you own a restaurant and don't want to serve blacks or gays, that's illegal. What if as a restaurant you don't want to buy your food supplies from blacks or gays? Is that legal? Also, the US gov is a customer of Amazon, so in a since they are giving my money to a group that is uneasy around gays.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is a very silly discussion. Amazon are a private corporation; they are perfectly at liberty to choose to sell or not to sell any product they want, and certainly don't have to justify their decisions to anybody. Nobody has a "right" to have their book sold by Amazon.

Amazon has the right to sell or not sell anything it likes--but it's sleazy, and possibly fraud, to penalize people for not following instructions they weren't given.

Nothing in Amazon's content guidelines indicates that titles, or titles of some genres, can't contain the word "rape." A quick search turns up several other books with rape in the title, including "The High School Rape Club."

Amazon doesn't have an obligation to carry any particular content, but it does have an obligation to tell its clients what the business rules are, and to apply those rules to all its clients, not selectively by criteria they refuse to define.

[HarryT]

I believe you'll find that Amazon can drop books from its catalogue purely on a whim if they wish to do so. What law do you think "obliges" them to have clear content guidelines?

[JSWolf]

The problem is that Amazon should refuse these books before they are every put up for sale. None of this nonsense of selling them and then dropping them. Don't sell them in the first place.

[Fastolfe]

Amazon doesn't read the MobileRead forum and doesn't much care about people's opinion. What they do read however is their ledger. If you want to catch their attention, vote with your wallet and don't buy Kindles or books from them.

[eppythacher]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is a very silly discussion. Amazon are a private corporation; they are perfectly at liberty to choose to sell or not to sell any product they want, and certainly don't have to justify their decisions to anybody. Nobody has a "right" to have their book sold by Amazon.

Amazon is not a private company, they are sold on the NYSE. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) $182.75 per share. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their stock holders to raise or maintain the price of the stock.

The fiduciary owes an obligation to carry out the responsibilities with the utmost degree of "good faith, honesty, integrity, loyalty and undivided service of the beneficiaries interest."

You can argue that not selling (for no good reason) books makes them less money. If Amazon acts in a heavy handed manner alienating authors and readers, it creates an opening for Google etc to gain market share. That's not in the best interests of the stock holders in my opinion. If you won't sell something, and your competitor does, you have a responsibility to your share holders to sell that product (regardless of your dislike for books about or for blacks, jews, gays, etc).

Google losing money by pulling out of China is different because of China's spying on Google's code etc.

[caleb72]

Neither of those books even sound like erotica. I agree that Amazon has a right to sell or not to sell anything they wish, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was a mistake of over-zealous "cleaners" whoever they may be.

Regards
Caleb

[K-Thom]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem is that Amazon should refuse these books before they are every put up for sale. None of this nonsense of selling them and then dropping them. Don't sell them in the first place.

This would indeed be THE solution, but who's going to pay for the staff reading/browsing each and every novel to decide? Do you think the DTP still would be free to use then?

This open structure right now allows any author to put his/her novel(s) online. For free. Within a few days. Without any censorship in advance!
But with the risk of being removed later if Amazon considers these novels unsuitable (and most of the stuff listed I personally(!) consider porn, not erotica).

On a grander scale I'd rather have it Amazon handle it the way they do now before they become a real gatekeeper and definitely using censorship methods to keep authors out.

DTP - use it at you own risk. But: no risk, no fun.

[DiapDealer]

Don't people ever get tired of silly hoopla?