Smashwords Succumbs to Censorship

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by sabredog

It is hypocrisy, because hundreds of dodgy, dirty transactions run through their accounts per day.

PayPal does take steps to prevent their service being used for money laundering and illegal activities, e.g. setting limits on transactions, and not accepting bank accounts in two different countries for a single customer. Many of these rules impede potential legal uses by legit customers.

If they did not take those steps, they'd be shut down by a plethora of law enforcement services.

[mr ploppy]

Here's something else that Paypal does.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...unterfeit.html

[frostschutz]

I don't mind them selling porn/erotica books, I just wish they'd stop showing them to me in search results and the like, as they seem to have a lot of those and they don't interest me in the least. They don't offer a global filter for it, just a general above 18 filter which according to their description will "also filter out books with no sexual content whatsoever", which is not what I want.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Here's something else that Paypal does.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...unterfeit.html

Exactly so.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Laridae

Exactly which banned acts do you think should be acceptable to describe in publicly available literature and why?

As long as they are clearly labelled, I don't think anything should be off limits to fiction writers. Boundaries should always be pushed.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by teh603

I've got a whole folder of night clubs and other groups that charge single men two to three times what they do single women...

Then go ahead and sue. Courts in several states do in fact agree with you that "Ladies' Nights" and women-only gyms constitute gender discrimination.

Originally Posted by teh603

Its perfectly ok to discriminate against men.

No, it's not acceptable to discriminate based on gender.

It's that the discrimination against women is more wide-spread, more frequent, and more damaging, therefore requires more protection.

[weebil]

To this end, I hope Dwolla and any other up-and-coming companies use this type of thing to their advantage. PayPal already has too much control of the online payment market. What is needed is more competition. Smashwords should be deciding its policies on what THEY think is right, not PayPal.

[Laridae]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

As long as they are clearly labelled, I don't think anything should be off limits to fiction writers. Boundaries should always be pushed.

Then you are either terribly naive or totally depraved, sir. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the former. I don't think you'd have to look very hard to find something that would totally gross you out! Are you really willing to defend the indefensible?

Let's not cling to empty platitudes here. The fact that it's difficult to know where to draw the line doesn't obviate the need to have one.

[DiapDealer]

The fact that it's difficult to know where to draw the line doesn't obviate the need to have one.

It most certainly does in my opinion.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Laridae

Then you are either terribly naive or totally depraved, sir. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the former. I don't think you'd have to look very hard to find something that would totally gross you out! Are you really willing to defend the indefensible?

Let's not cling to empty platitudes here. The fact that it's difficult to know where to draw the line doesn't obviate the need to have one.

And you're a book burner, which makes you both naive and depraved. Perhaps the content would "gross me out", but since when as "grossing me out" been a standard to ban books? I might disapprove of some of the content on your shelves, does that give me the right to ban them?

I'm not defending the content, because it doesn't need defending. People have the right to read whatever they want. That's not a platitude, that's a basic human right. That bar you would set so low tends to get raised. Better not to have it at all. It's naive to think that this bar won't be raised, a cursory understanding of history demonstrated this.

We're talking about books, they are just words. We aren't talking about movies, there is no actual people involved, thus there are no victims.

[QuantumIguana]

One of the big problems with this is what it says about our relationship with money. Paper money doesn't care what you spend it on. Person A hands money to Person B in exchange for goods and services. When a third party gets in the middle and judges whether we are allowed to make this transaction, that is a loss of freedom. We need to have electronic transactions that are more like a transaction with paper money.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Laridae

Then you are either terribly naive or totally depraved, sir. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the former. I don't think you'd have to look very hard to find something that would totally gross you out! Are you really willing to defend the indefensible?

Can you explain why it is that a fictionalised account of murder are acceptable, but a fictionalised account of paedophilia is not? One might say "they are both despicable acts and should not be written about", and yet fiction depicting murder thrives. What do you consider to be the ethical difference between a fictionalised account of one crime and a fictionalised account of another? Why is it acceptable to read murder fiction, but "totally depraved" to read paedophilia fiction?

[QuantumIguana]

Popular speech doesn't need protecting. It is only the unpopular that needs protecting. There would be no need for protecting freedom of speech is the only thing protected was popular speech. That would like saying there is freedom of religion, but only for the popular religions.

[JJArgus]

Originally Posted by Pablo

This really pisses me off.
BTW, why does Smashwords need Paypal at all? Can't they process CC payments themselves?

Not just anyone can process CC payments. The CC companies decide who they will and won't accept as processors, and they are the ones who started the crackdown against adult material in the first place.

The adult oriented sites on the net are finding it more and more difficult to find credit card processors, and have to pay a huge premium. Most retailers, for example, fork over about 2% of sales to Visa or Mastercard. Adult sites have to pay as much as 25% to those credit card processors willing to handle adult material, and those processors can be cut off, and have been, by Visa and Mastercard if they let sites go over the moral line the CC companies set

The CC companies are big, rich, powerful, monopolistic, American, conservative and Republican. They will screw you any possible way they can, but they hold their noses whenever the talk of sex comes up.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Laridae

Let's talk specifics!
Has everyone read the original article?
Exactly which banned acts do you think should be acceptable to describe in publicly available literature and why?

Surely people accept that some subjects, like kiddie porn, for example, are obviously so objectionable and reprehensible that they are not acceptable under any conditions? If yes then that means a general acceptance of a level of "censorshop" over the basest interests of a certain portion of the population. QED.

Yes, I understand the argument about the slippery slope and all that, but based on the Specifics of this case, it seems to me the bar is set pretty low and no-where near banning anything of any redeeming social value.

Not only have I read the original article, I also read quite a great deal of erotica.

And I still say, keep your political and religious leanings away from my freaking books! What you are saying is that YOU don't like A, B or C and therefore others should not have the right to them because YOU don't feel they are appropriate.

No, thank you. Keep your censorship to yourself.