Amazon censorship

[johnnyb]

They way you formulate your reply, I can do nothing but agree...
But: what companies should or shouldn't do is not in any condition part of what they ARE ALREADY doing... Or formulated differently: not what is conceived of as proper from an abstract prescriptive ethical perspective should guide considerations about censorship etc but what companies etc are doing that can and does in fact become the basis for any ethics whatsoever...
In this respect, companies are part of the process that creates ethical prescriptions because they do first what is then considered "proper"... That means, if we don't want democratic freedom to cease to exist, it is inevitable to consider non-governmental organization (commercial or non-commercial) as a vital and inevitable part of the chain of legislation...
Even as a retailer they DO influence ethics that means that in this respect, they ARE the street corner as far as censorship is concerned... And this is actually what I was pointing out in the first place: being part of a mechanism of censorship they DO perform censorship (or as you would put it, editorial control, something that is part of censorship to a varyin extent, depending on the overall influence of an orgnization)...
What I was trying to show was that it is impossible to tell where censorship begin because there simply cannot exist a clear dividing line... Amazon of course may or may not want to sell products of such and such a flavor but it is wrong to say that they do that without any consequences because it has nothing to do with censorship by a definition that does not contain this connection...
(ethically this of course implies that Amazon's behavior should be inquired according to standards applied when inquiring censorship, what follows from that is another matter: laws might force companies to censor but that does not mean that it's not censorship anymore)...

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

They aren't.

The news media are colloquially referred to as the "fourth branch of government" in the US. That does not mean that news media are obligated to eschew any and all editorial controls, or that retailers are obligated to carry every piece of content available.



Corporations do not have any obligations to promulgate any ideas or content.

Nor is there any viable mechanism to ensure that all viewpoints are given 100% equal media or retailer attention. What should we do -- supply bookstores with an equal number of books by Noam Chomsky, William F. Buckley and Stephen King? Force retailers to carry incest erotica, and then force people to buy it?



Incorrect.

It's clear Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Fox and numerous other companies have an influence. That is not the point.

Retailers have the legal and moral right to exercise editorial controls -- even if it does so in a manner that someone (usually the aggrieved party) regards as "unfair." To require Amazon to publish anything and everything is not only highly unusual, it deprives them of their rights to exercise editorial control over their own business.

You, as an individual, have the right to say what you want. But the right to free speech does not, in any way shape or form, guarantee you access to a specific platform for your views or content. If I do not want to distribute your ideas, I am not obligated to do so -- no matter how influential I am.

Amazon is a retailer. They are not a utility, an ISP or a street corner. I suggest you learn the difference.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by dacattt

Bet they won't give you a refund a few years down the road when you can't transfer the book/s they "banned" to your new devices. In a few years, are you going to be able to find that same book at some small e-book store. Less likely. Net result, the censoring wins, you're without your book.

This is true of *all* ereaders, though, and it's an inherent problem with e-books. There is no guarantee that, in five years, you'll be able to read your e-books on any device. This is far from an Amazon problem. And I'm much more confident that Amazon will be in the business of selling e-books in five years than I am that B&N or Borders will be in business at all, or that Apple will still be selling ibooks.

So if you really want to be safe, you shouldn't buy e-books.

If the line moves, as others have suggested above, and Amazon becomes something like the evil Wallymart empire, and now the line restricts books based on religion and/or politics and/or anything a loud group determines isn't proper for you to read.... you still loose your books.... and your money... without crossing that line of civil disability and stripping the locks.

Such a way to run a company!

But it doesn't matter if you don't care what someone else does with your reading material.

Yeah, the "if the line moves" argument is pretty weak. I mean, sure, Amazon could switch to only selling books by Catholic authors, for instance. But the fact that they stopped selling a few self-published erotica titles dealing with incest is no evidence that they are going to stop selling all offensive material.

AFAICT, Amazon is still selling 50 of the author's erotica titles.

[screwballl]

1) Amazon has every right to say what they will and will not sell, that is their right and freedom to do so. They also have every right to change the standards by which they sell their items or services at any time as well. They may take a contract to sell 5000 cheap Chinese pill bottles but if they find that too many people dislike them or lack of sales, they have every right to stop selling them, regardless of how many people may actually want them. Same goes for ebooks, if it is found to cause too much controversy or problems then they have the right to stop selling or remove the book from their system.

2) Just because the book/ebook contains certain material does not mean it will automatically be pulled, it is definitely on a case by case basis where they find too many complaints about the material. In this case it is not just incest, it is not just erotica, it is extreme descriptive incestuous sexual relations.

3) Remember, if you don't like a business' practices, you have every right to shop somewhere else. Considering half the people replying to this thread do not even have a Kindle or amazon product, I really do not see them as having a valid or legitimate complaint against Amazon.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

....companies are part of the process that creates ethical prescriptions because they do first what is then considered "proper"...

I don't think people take their moral cues from retailers.

Consumers expect retailers to behave ethically and to reflect their values. When the retailer fails to do so, they often get taken to task for it.

There is also little consensus among retailers about what content it wants to sell and/or promote. A Christian retailer will offer vastly different content than an S&M shop. Which one is imposing its "ethical restrictions" on the public?

In terms of overtly influencing public opinion, that's the domain of "the media" -- news, radio, op-eds, pundits and bloggers. But even these entities are well within their rights to exercise editorial controls. You may not like Fox News, and clearly that network is pushing highly specific political agendas, but ultimately if they do not want to hire Rachel Maddow then that is an editorial choice and not an act of censorship.

Originally Posted by johnnyb

That means, if we don't want democratic freedom to cease to exist, it is inevitable to consider non-governmental organization (commercial or non-commercial) as a vital and inevitable part of the chain of legislation...

No, it certainly is not.

Generally speaking is not an instance of democracy or liberty to force a company to sell a product. It is not "undemocratic" for a Kosher butcher to refrain from selling pork chops -- even if that is the only butcher shop in a 10, 20 or 50 mile radius. Nor is it democratic to force the butcher to sell pork chops when he refuses to do so on ethical grounds.

The consequence of your line of argument would result in every retailer being required to sell whatever any vendor demands -- for if the retailer refuses, in theory that is "censorship." That is an utterly unworkable position.

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Even as a retailer they DO influence ethics that means that in this respect, they ARE the street corner as far as censorship is concerned...

And yet, Walmart and Apple both redline pornographic content, far more drastically than Amazon.

How would you require this, by the way? Do you intend to protest Walmart until they carry incest erotica? Pass a law saying that Walmart is required to carry every book ever written, no matter how offensive management and customers alike find the material?

And whose ethics, exactly, should we follow? One person may strongly value "free expression," and another may find that a specific topic (e.g. incest erotica) is fundamentally unethical and should be shoved out of the public arena by any legal means possible.

Your prescription is unworkable and restricts the liberty of the retailers.

Originally Posted by johnnyb

What I was trying to show was that it is impossible to tell where censorship begin because there simply cannot exist a clear dividing line...

I won't say the line is "clear," but:

"Censorship" = government suppression of content and/or speech
"Editing" = private organizations limiting speech in the outlets they own or manage

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by david_e

I have very much enjoyed the discussion this issue has created but would like to ask about the personal responsibility of the author? I read the authors blog several times to make sure I understood what she was saying and each time I came away with the impression that she never consulted the Content Guidelines until after her work was removed.

How can you complain about being held to the terms of a contract that you agreed to but apparently never bothered to read? If you find terms of an agreement "so vague as to be useless" wouldn't you want to clarify the vagueness before consenting to do business?

Now back to the Nazis, Communist plots, and the evil corporate empire...

The content guidelines are that vague I don't think it would make any difference if they did read them first. Most of them are more relevant to video than fiction.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

... "Censorship" = government suppression of content and/or speech ...

Could you please explain why you think censorship implies government suppression of content and/or speech? Neither the Merriam-Webster, Oxford, Collins or Chambers dictionaries mentions government in their definitions of censor, or censorship.

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I won't say the line is "clear," but:

"Censorship" = government suppression of content and/or speech
"Editing" = private organizations limiting speech in the outlets they own or manage

Censorship is NOT only government based, that is a false assumption. In the example you give, censorship and "editing" are one and the same thing.

Legal definition: to examine in order to suppress or delete any contents considered objectionable.

Nowhere does it say the word government.

Considering this is a private business, they have every right and freedom to censor whatever they want.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by dacattt

That doesn't solve it in the long run. Their books are DRMed to a specific device and a specific computer. In a few years you will have upgraded both. Having that backup, without doing something classified illegal, you still loose what you purchased.

So, all that backing up does, is delay the time in which Amazon does just take your book away that you have paid for. You loose either way, and retroactively they are taking the book from you because they changed their minds after your purchase.

The issue of DRM can't be separated from the issue of backup. As someone who's lost music due to DRM because it couldn't be migrated from an old computer to a new one, I should have also included the step "remove the DRM" in my post about archiving.

Funny that people who are complaining about Amazon "taking away" their books are unwilling to take the necessary step to protect those same books. After all, you are claiming that they should be yours in perpetuity, aren't you? Removing the DRM merely to be able to create an always-usuable copy of something that you purchased shouldn't cause loss of sleep or moral qualms.

[screwballl]

This related to anything with DRM:

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

This is true of *all* ereaders, though, and it's an inherent problem with e-books. There is no guarantee that, in five years, you'll be able to read your e-books on any device. This is far from an Amazon problem. And I'm much more confident that Amazon will be in the business of selling e-books in five years than I am that B&N or Borders will be in business at all, or that Apple will still be selling ibooks.

So if you really want to be safe, you shouldn't buy e-books.

Actually, a better alternative might be to buy a device that reads ePub and to buy only books in ePub format. If Sony stops selling books, its ebooks will still be readable -- without DRM stripping -- on numerous other devices; in contrast, if Amazon pulls the rug, there is no alternative absent DRM stripping, which most ebook buyers do not/cannot do.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by screwballl

Censorship does NOT equal or require government intervention. This has already been covered... try going back a few pages of this thread, thanks!

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.

Censorship, in common usage, does normally refer to governmental action, since that affects the population as a whole, and is backed by a legal framework.

Amazon is not a government entity, a media outlet or other controlling body. It is merely one of thousands of booksellers. What it did was make a business decision, albeit awkwardly, regarding a single author's book.

My point was that the use of the term "censorship" in connection with Amazon did give the thread drama and traffic, but is ultimately misleading and gives more import to Amazon's action than it deserves.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Actually, a better alternative might be to buy a device that reads ePub and to buy only books in ePub format. If Sony stops selling books, its ebooks will still be readable -- without DRM stripping -- on numerous other devices; in contrast, if Amazon pulls the rug, there is no alternative absent DRM stripping, which most ebook buyers do not/cannot do.

You are assuming that epub will still be around as a viable format. The format is only about three years old and may be replaced by something else in a few years...as has happened with many other formats.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Censorship, in common usage, does normally refer to governmental action ...

Arguably, this thread has been censored at least once. I am now referring to its censorship. Clearly this wasn't carried out at the behest of any government. Perhaps you don't think this example is common usage, but hopefully you'll agree that censorship is not as categoric as some seem to believe.

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Censorship, in common usage, does normally refer to governmental action, since that affects the population as a whole, and is backed by a legal framework.

Amazon is not a government entity, a media outlet or other controlling body. It is merely one of thousands of booksellers. What it did was make a business decision, albeit awkwardly, regarding a single author's book.

My point was that the use of the term "censorship" in connection with Amazon did give the thread drama and traffic, but is ultimately misleading and gives more import to Amazon's action than it deserves.

I don't see how it can be misleading to use a word according to its correct meaning. Unless you are worried about offending teens that don't know how to spell "the".

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Arguably, this thread has been censored at least once. I am now referring to its censorship.

No, the thread has been edited and/or moderated.

I would agree that you can use the word "official" instead of "government," but that doesn't change the facts of this case. Amazon has no official status in the US other than "retailer," and its decision in this matter most certainly has not silenced the author.

Not every single act of limiting or even restricting speech qualifies as "censorship."