Quote:
Originally Posted by ereadingdotcom
When others try to influence what we can and cannot read, that is censorship.
|
If that were true, every book review, good or bad, would be censorship.
I don't agree that censorship can only be done by governments, but I do believe it requires the power to remove something from sale. Unless bad reviews cause Amazon to unlist the book, it's not censorship. It's one corner of the market yelling "We think you shouldn't buy this because it sucks!"
In the US, at least, they have the right to do that for any reason they like.
Quote:
|
As a consumer, I find it depressing. A free and open market is where you decide not to buy if you don't like a product, not force it out of the marketplace because you and a group of your friends don't like it.
|
In a free and open market, I am quite comfortable encouraging my friends to boycott some products, and hoping that the boycott will drive them out of existence. You seem to be saying that trying to convince other people to avoid what you dislike is censorship.
Part of the glory of the internet age is crowdsourced activism. That works both ways... Homestuck gets its 2-million-dollar kickstarter, and the Michael Jackson book gets panned by people who haven't read it but object to it existing. Shrug.
(I think what they're doing is vile. I don't think we have, nor should have, laws against vile behavior. That kind of thing should be managed by community ethics, not legalities.)