Amazon removing gay ebooks from their catalog again

[corona]

Originally Posted by sunnysmiles

Good I would also like to see all the other porn removed from amazon especially where the covers are explicit.

Yeah well who gets to decide if it's porn or not -- Amazon marketing staff? I'm old enough to remember when William S. Burroughs's novels were only available "underground." Well, we're headed that way anyway so might as well just go ahead and do it.

[seigezunt]

Ah, another reason to never buy a Kindle. Supporting censorship.

Thanks, Amazon!

[corona]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I
When folks start bandying words like discrimination around and try to tie it to the civil rights struggle, then it is a legal definition of discrimination that they are trying to finesse. "Discrimination" is a word that has weight and history; the non-legal usage you're implying makes it seem comparable to my 5 year old niece telling her mother that she's being discriminated against because she can't wear her sparkly sneakers to school.

Yes and the only reason it has "weight and history" is because people stood up for their rights. Lots and lots of people have died because their sexual orientation was different than the mainstream; lots more endure discrimination -- where discrimination means the experience of real fear -- every day. If Amazon is pulling erotica because it is aimed at non-heterosexuals, and similar straight material is staying on the shelves, that's discrimination, pure and simple.

I note in passing that in some jurisdictions it would also be illegal discrimination.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by corona

If Amazon is pulling erotica because it is aimed at non-heterosexuals, and similar straight material is staying on the shelves, that's discrimination, pure and simple.

I note in passing that in some jurisdictions it would also be illegal discrimination.

You are wrong, and this was just discussed upthread.

[corona]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

You are wrong, and this was just discussed upthread.

And you, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit, are of course right. At least as far as the legal part goes. Of course a retailer has no obligation to stock goods meant to appeal to a segment of the population, even if those folks are historically discriminated against.

What bothers me is that when retailers become so huge and influential, on the supply side as well, they can really impact what marginalized people have the opportunity to purchase. Banking services, for example: Wikileaks -- who so far retain the presumption of innocence -- has been seriously hampered by the refusal of the merchant banks to handle their donations.

So I don't think it's totally straightforward. I agree with others above that this is primarily a moral argument. However, I don't think the blanket excuse of market forces is really good enough. The kind of public services in which discrimination is prohibited, in Canada at least, can in some cases be provided by non-governmental or commercial organizations. I'd like to see what would happen if a bank, for instance, refused to offer mortgages to gay people.

Here's the relevant statutory definition of discrimination where I live (British Columbia):

"(1) A person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification,

(a) deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public, or

(b) discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public.

because of the race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation or age of that person or class of persons."

This seems to me to describe Amazon's actions, certainly in "moral" terms. And I note that many of the "public" services in which discrimination is very clearly prohibited operate in the market sphere. Marginalized people have won rights by standing up for them, often at great risk. Not very many white people in the South, back in the early 20th century, saw anything wrong with treating African-Americans as second-class citizens. At the risk of sounding glib, Rosa Parks could after all have taken a taxi.

[Kali Yuga]

Wow, you guys are still on this...?

Originally Posted by corona

What bothers me is that when retailers become so huge and influential, on the supply side as well, they can really impact what marginalized people have the opportunity to purchase....

That's a nice theory, but most of us no longer live in a world where the only place to buy CD's is the local Walmart. There are almost no such barriers online, especially if the alternate retailer / publisher are willing to eschew DRM.

Originally Posted by corona

Wikileaks -- who so far retain the presumption of innocence -- has been seriously hampered by the refusal of the merchant banks to handle their donations.

That's sort of like saying Al Qaeda should only be regarded as a terrorist group after they've been convicted.

No one should be forced to do business with Wikileaks, if they don't like what that organization is doing.

Originally Posted by corona

The kind of public services in which discrimination is prohibited, in Canada at least, can in some cases be provided by non-governmental or commercial organizations. I'd like to see what would happen if a bank, for instance, refused to offer mortgages to gay people.

Amazon is not a bank with a history of redlining. They are not refusing to serve anyone based on any of the categories listed.

In addition, Amazon has absolutely no, I repeat no, obligations to carry content that they deem "objectionable." If I write a book advocating the genocidal slaughter of Group X, and Amazon refuses to carry it, is that "discrimination against Genocidalists?" Should I receive moral or legal support to force Amazon to wholly commit to its marketing claims that they will carry "every book ever?"

Nor are they issuing a broadside against gays. Last I checked there were well over 700,000 commercial ebook titles available via Amazon; blocking 7 titles, for example, means they've blocked a whopping 0.001% of their titles.

They've also yanked a few titles featuring (straight) incest erotica, pedophilia, and due to copyright issues.

If Amazon decided to drop every single title in their "Gay & Lesbian" sections, then you'd have a point. When they drop 7 books that can be validly construed as depicting pedophilia, while leaving thousands of other books that describe or depict homosexual activities, then viewing this as "discriminatory" is a patently absurd example of excessive sensitively.

[crich70]

There is also the question of whether everyone can agree on if something is obscene or not. For example I understand that in the late 19th or early 20th century a man mailed a pamphlet to others and found himself being charged with making obscene materials available to others via the U.S. Mails. And what did he in fact mail to others?

Spoiler:

The Song of Songs which is Solomon's

Kinda gives a new perspective on the idea of what is and isn't proper to censor I think.

Originally Posted by sunnysmiles

Good I would also like to see all the other porn removed from amazon especially where the covers are explicit.