Amazon censorship

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I'm just guessing, but I would have thought having DRM would identify the books that Amazon doesn't want people to read for certain, whereas if there is no DRM there would be a risk of deleting the wrong book?

Amazon files use both a specific filename convention as well as an embedded number that uniquely identifies the file. I've heard that this can be removed but it's not just a matter of stripping the DRM.

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Are you genuinely incapable of distinguishing between a religious text and prurient material?

Yes. I genuinely am. I can tell what books other people think are "holy books;" people are often quite vocal about it. What I can't tell is what makes those books actually holy.

I can't sense the "holy aura." I would say I'm just color-blind that way, and other people can sense something I can't, except different people report different perceptions of what book is actually really the holy one, (or ones). So I think nobody else can sense it either.

One standard for every book seems fair to me. Not "all these books have to meet guideline X but this other book I think is holy so it gets a pass."

It's simple enough--if your holy book can't meet guideline X, discard the guideline; it obviously wasn't a good one.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Once they start banning books for one reason, there are always more reasons.

Yes, and if the people of Indochina were allowed to vote Communists into office, why, the entire region will all go Commie.

The domino effect/slippery slope argument could be used to justify almost any position in this argument, and as such is not terribly persuasive.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

I don't think they're anywhere near being a monopoly. Heck, they're not even a monopoly for Kindle books, unless they somehow were to block side-loading. How can anything Amazon does keep Kobo, B&N, Google, or any other Web site from making e-books available?

If you look at the sales figures for anyone who has published them, Amazon sales outnumber other sales by a factor of 10 to 1. They might not be a monopoly, but they do have the power to kill someone's writing career stone dead.

We had something like this in the UK in the 80s when the moral minority decided that horror films were bad for us. We were lucky that we could still buy them from other countries (though even posession was a crime). That isn't something you will be able to do in this case because Amazon's decision over whether something is suitable reading or not is global.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

Yes. I genuinely am. I can tell what books other people think are "holy books;" people are often quite vocal about it. What I can't tell is what makes those books actually holy.

Prurient material is written to get the reader(s) sexually aroused. The Old Testament, to put it mildly, was not.

Even if we leave aside all value judgments, it's screamingly obvious that citing the Old Testament as an example of societal tolerance for incest erotica is patently absurd.

And let's face it, no standard can be written in such a way as to preemptively determine what, exactly, will get booted by a retailer at any time. One person's nuance is another person's vagueness, and this is a structural issue that no amount of specificity could fully fix.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I'm not really seeing an issue here, other than a minor customer service snafu.

Amazon is perfectly within its rights and ethical obligations to pull a book without explanation. Nor are they required to apply a standard based on the most crude interpretation possible. I'd hope it is fairly clear that there is a difference between the Old Testament and erotica that involves incest. (Making such comparisons is flat-out disingenuous.)

But it is unfair of Amazon to sell a product, pull said product and then not give the money paid for said product back to the customers. But if amazon is not giving the money back to customers who have already downloaded these eBooks, then that's fine as they've gotten what they've paid for. But for those who have yet to download it, then they should get the money back for the undownloaded eBooks. But really, I do have to say that not download eBooks right after purchase is a really bad idea and shit happens so download right away and you'll have it.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

One standard for every book seems fair to me. Not "all these books have to meet guideline X but this other book I think is holy so it gets a pass."

It's simple enough--if your holy book can't meet guideline X, discard the guideline; it obviously wasn't a good one.

Judgment and context are everything, and if you can't recognize that, I guess you'd be happy with a computer program that would just willy-nilly count certain words and disallow anything over a specified number.

Judgment isn't censorship. Would you argue that a publisher MUST publish anything that comes in over the transom, because not doing so is censorship?

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

There aren't many viable alternatives.

Sure there are. Alternative 0) Don't be intimidated by a bunch of prudish busybodies into pulling objectionable material.

Alternative 1) Pull the book from the store, but leave it on the personal archives of people who wanted it enough to buy it. Amazon has pulled books from the store for various reasons (mostly legal, I thought) in the past--didn't they handle it this way then?

Alternative 2) Pull the book from the archives also and refund the customers for the book whether they delete it from their Kindles or not. Yes, it is going the extra mile to refund customers for a book they might still have. So what? Once you have breeched your agreement with a customer, going the extra mile to make it as right as possible is pretty standard customer service.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Sounds to me like the author figured it out.

It sounds to me like the author is guessing. A reasonable guess, based on the scanty amount of available evidence, which does not include any kind of clear guidelines from Amazon, is not the same as knowing what went wrong.

The author shouldn't have to guess.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Please explain how a book about incest can be of any morally neutral value. Do you even understand the Godless position you are defending?

And you do realize that a lot of people do not believe there is a God and thus being Godless is not an issue. Also, a lot of people believe in a different God then you do. So again, your calling someone Godless based on your idea of God again, not an issue. I'm Jewish and for me, Jesus is not the son of God. So if you pray to Jesus, I think you pray to a false God. So that would make you Godless if I was to be specific. So please, don't call anyone Godless lest you find yourself Godless due to praying to a false God.

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Judgment and context are everything, and if you can't recognize that, I guess you'd be happy with a computer program that would just willy-nilly count certain words and disallow anything over a specified number.

Judgment isn't censorship. Would you argue that a publisher MUST publish anything that comes in over the transom, because not doing so is censorship?

Actually, I would be more happy with just leaving the objectionable material available for sale. Nobody is requiring anybody buy it, or read it.

Judgment isn't censorship. Saying "other books have to meet these standards but my holy book doesn't" is censorship. Once we avoid giving "holy books" a special free pass, we can make judgments based on the quality of each book, just as a publisher does when deciding what books to publish, and a customer does when deciding which books to buy.

But as I understand it, people are not advocating the removal of the books in question because they're painfully written, boring and incoherent--the sort of thing that would make them hard to publish.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Can anyone who has used the "inappropriate content" link tell me what exactly happens when you click it?

You don't need to submit a report to see what it does:

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I don't happen to read the particular category of books that Amazon is trashing, I find them personally offensive, but Amazon does sell a lot of books that I think are offensive, including anything written by Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Of course, I also find Sarah Palin's books offensive because she abuses language, thereby setting a precedent for school children to demand that their illiterate writings be deemed Palinesque.

And lest we forget the ex-president Bush who had to have his book typed by someone as the publisher doesn't accept manuscripts in crayon.

[RW2112]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

We had something like this in the UK in the 80s when the moral minority decided that horror films were bad for us. We were lucky that we could still buy them from other countries (though even possession was a crime).

Sorry to thread jack a bit, but I was taken aback by this. Some of the greatest horror movies to ever come out came from British studios.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Are you genuinely incapable of distinguishing between a religious text and prurient material?

Many people think my religion's texts are prurient material. And as a teen, I read parts of the OT with prurient intent.

Boundaries like these are always going to look arbitrary and/or unfair to whoever winds up in the cold.

Not if they actually define what material is not welcome in their bookstore, and apply that across all content. As a point of comparison, VC Andrews' Flowers in the Attic series is still available for the Kindle.

Ultimately it's Amazon's servers, their services, and if they don't want to sell a specific book, that's their business. Let someone else offer it for sale if they so choose.

They have the right not to sell things, and the right not to tell their business partners what they won't sell. They may not have the legal right to remove them from their servers, as the Kindle sales pitch claims that you can re-download your purchases at any time. Short of a court order requiring the removal of the books, removing access may be breach of contract.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

You don't need to submit a report to see what it does:

Edited to add: And it does require you to sign in to submit any sort of feedback, which does make me feel better about it.