Amazon censorship

[eastamant.com]

Would everyone’s thoughts be the same if they pulled a political work off their lists? Maybe my New Ancein Regime or Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent or Szasz’s The Myth of Mental Illness. I just wish Amazon would work out their problems with Smashwords so my ebooks could be banned by them. Just joking. But I have 24 books at Kobo, B&N, Kobo, Apple etcetera and would welcome the problems writers face at the “Big A” nonetheless in the future, these issues, (i.e. censorship by corporations) will be nasty, especially as we move toward a neoliberal technocratic autocracy with shades of giant free markets regulated by massive governments.

[Dodge]

I'll chime in -

1.) Amazon can choose to sell or not sell what they want to like any other business unless it's illegal. They aren't a government entity. Sure they wield a lot of power in the book and online/retail world. But they have the right to sell what they want to or not.

2.) If you pay for something it would seem you should keep it or get a refund. But if laws state the material is illegal then no you don't get to keep it but you should get a refund.

3.) I'm not concerned too much here considering the topic (incest). Now to what degree? Do ALL books that mention any type of incest get banned or just books that are "steamy"? There needs to be some rules here from Amazon and communication as well. It seems they did not have any guidelines and allowed anything in to help boost their inventory from a corporate perspective and now they are going through the pile to see what stays or not. A screening process should have been up right from the start.

4.) I would be concerned if they start banning books for political messages, rants and raves on powerful people, businesses, and laws; books on religion or ideologies, etc..

5.) If someone wants incest based material then there are other venues (I assume?). If not, and the demand is strong enough, other venues will arise to satisfy those folks who want incest material. Amazon isn't the end all for books.

6.) Would I be mad if this happened to my work? Yes, especially when it was accepted, sold, and then tossed. But that is Amazon's choice.

[screwballl]

That is what is great about this massive world of the internet. When one provider doesn't carry something or chooses to drop something, as long as there is demand for it, at least 2 or 3 other providers will pick it up and offer it.

This is also why we need to stop these illegal "net neutrality" bills that Congress keeps trying to force through. They would essentially force all companies to offer their service for all items in their market, whether they want to or not. Verizon would have to open their network up to AT&T or JoeBlowWireless. JBW could be a shell company that maybe sells a few unlocked cheap web capable cell phones and never have to pay for their own network, they can just mooch off of the other companies that already have theirs laid out. Comcast would have to allow and never throttle or block traffic from any company and as people start sucking up as much bandwidth as they can use, all the ISPs start failing.
The networks get overcrowded and the entire system starts failing one node at a time. Same would start happening to the internet to the point where all internet and cell phone based communications just stop working over the course of a few weeks as everything comes crashing down.

This is the same type of layout that people complain about with Amazons "censorship". If they were forced to carry every ebook and paper book ever made, they would have so much overhead that they would just fail and close up shop, just like every other book/ebook provider.

[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...

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by screwballl

This is also why we need to stop these illegal "net neutrality" bills that Congress keeps trying to force through.

Well....

AFAIK there is nothing illegal about the proposed bills, though obviously this would depend on the actual language of the bill and pursuant to judicial review.

There is also a big difference between an ISP and a retailer. An ISP is more like a utility or phone company, and they are not held responsible for any content they transmit.

I concur that service providers should have some latitude to shape bandwidth. The potential anti-competitive issues are what happens if Comcast simultaneously launches an online movie service and throttles Netflix.

Net neutrality also doesn't allow people to resell bandwidth or remove caps on the end users. It's more of a heavy-handed method of ensuring that ISP's don't shape traffic to their own advantage.

[Kali Yuga]

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?

Although I think she has lost perspective on the issue, I don't think she is at fault here. She hasn't been specifically informed of how she violated the guidelines, so she doesn't know exactly what policy she violated.

She doesn't have any legal recourse here, since (afaik) Amazon reserves the right to yank content at any time and for any reason. Thus, all she can do is complain about vague editorial policies.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Greed? Name one?

WWII. The Axis Powers seized land and resources.

Originally Posted by haiyeekayakee

I don't live in America and the more I learn about it the more grateful I am ...

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

WWII. The Axis Powers seized land and resources.

Yes, in pretty much every war somebody has appropriated something. Well done.

If that's the limit of your critical reasoning, can I suggest you leave this to the grown-ups?

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Yes, in pretty much every war somebody has appropriated something. Well done.

If that's the limit of your critical reasoning, can I suggest you leave this to the grown-ups?

Can you?

[montsnmags]

Moderator Notice
This thread is discussing censorship and as it relates to an incident involving Amazon. It is not discussing religion or the causes of war. It is also required at MR at all times that things be discussed politely. Please return to the thread topic and, if you are unable to remain polite, refrain from posting.

Marc
The Moderator Team

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

This thread is discussing censorship and as it relates to an incident involving Amazon. It is not discussing religion or the causes of war. It is also required at MR at all times that things be discussed politely. Please return to the thread topic and, if you are unable to remain polite, refrain from posting.

Marc
The Moderator Team

If you're planning to ensure that every thread remains on topic for its entirety, you're going to need a much bigger moderation team! I could point out a dozen or more threads right now that have evolved into something else from where they started - why pick this one out?

If you're concerned about the topics it's discussing now, then why not just say so (or close it) instead of inferring that you have intervened because the thread has drifted off-topic?

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

... I think she has lost perspective on the issue ...

And maybe clutching at straws.

"...It may also be based on threatening governmental pressure related to the recently removed WikiLeaks ..."

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

If you're planning to ensure that every thread remains on topic for its entirety, you're going to need a much bigger moderation team! I could point out a dozen or more threads right now that have evolved into something else from where they started - why pick this one out?

If you're concerned about the topics it's discussing now, then why not just say so (or close it) instead of inferring that you have intervened because the thread has drifted off-topic?

Moderator Notice
I reiterate my mod post above. On-topicality and politeness is required. Please return to it or refrain from posting.

Marc
Moderator Team

[Andrew H.]

If Amazon were a traditional publisher, Selena submitted a manuscript to them, and they rejected it, I don't think that anyone would really complain that this was unfair, that it was censorship (although in a way it certainly is), or that the publisher needs to have and follow a policy describing what books it will accept or reject for publication.

Amazon is not a traditional publisher, though. Amazon accepts, by default, everything (except maybe certain PD books) for publication, but reserves the right to retroactively reject books for publication. This approach allows Amazon to publish far more books than it would if it had to sift through every book before allowing it to be published, which would negatively affect all books, just to stop the .001% that Amazon would prefer not to publish.

It looks like Amazon does specify that it reserves the right to reject books, and it doesn't seem like this is any more unfair than traditional publishers rejecting a book before publishing it: in both cases the writer has already done the work of writing the book.

It is unfortunate that Amazon's "permit first, reject later" policy causes some authors to believe that they have a right to be published on Amazon after Amazon has allowed their books to be sold. But this is not the case, and it's unfortunate that people seem to believe this. Amazon rejecting a self published book retroactively is not much different from a publisher rejecting a book prospectively, except that you at least have the advantage of some sales, some publicity, and the ability to put "Too Hot for Amazon!!" your book's description.

Except in unusual circumstances, though, Amazon should send purchasers of a banned book an e-mail notifying them of the fact and giving them some time period (maybe 30 days) to download the book from the archives if it's not kept on the device.

I do think that Amazon is being pulled both ways on this: when they didn't immediately ban the non-erotic pedophile book, they were pummeled by some readers; when they pull an erotic incest book, they are pummeled by others. So there's nothing they can do that will please everyone. But I suppose this does create market niches for cleanbooksdotcom or dirtybooksdotcom. And there's something to be said for that.

[John K]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

My personal summation of this thread:

Position 1: "Amazon has no right to do that!!"

Position 2: "Yes, they do!!"

Really, it's all been said. Has anybody actually had their opinion changed by reading the same arguments over and over? My only question was "did it really happen?" and it was answered to my satisfaction. Agree to disagree on this, maybe?

Although I respect your desire for peace, tranquility and good will Betty, I have to say I'm proud of my fellow book lovers for the length of this thread. I don't even care if it really happened, it's still a good discussion.

I don't think anyone is advocating government intervention here. We need to decide how we as individuals are going to respond. I suspect that Amazon's actions were influenced by customer input. Now they can respond to this firestorm.