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Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

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Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#701

Post by krona »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #648
lgleason wrote: post #562

As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here. Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don't stand up for everyone…

There's two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to. These are some children's books that contain illustrations that some people find offensive and the publisher (and sellers) are deciding they no longer want to be associated with and sell to children. There are internet forums where the images are available and people can view them without the police knocking your door down, and I'm sure these are available in…

Ebay isn't forcing people to read the books, and ebay isn't forcing people to sell the books, so you're making a fairly fallacious argument, in my humble opinion.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#703

Post by hef19898 »

DanBC wrote: post #665
YuccaGloriosa wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody if importance is going to stand up. Ask J.K.Rowling

I don't get it. All her books are still in print and being sold. All the films from her books are still being sold. There's work happening right now to create games from her IP. She could have an interview published in any UK media of her choice tomorrow. How is she cancelled?

There is being "cancelled" (funny enough, most cancelled people really have every opportunity to complain afterwards), and getting headwind for ones statements and controversial opinions.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#704

Post by pm90 »

PontifexMinimus wrote: post #640
illirik wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “weapon” here is just basic conscientiousness. A publisher decided to stop publishing some books because they denigrate people, and eBay decided that they did not want to be facilitating the sale of books that denigrate people. We are not talking about an H-bomb - there is no power structure wielding a “cancel button” here.

> there is no power structure wielding a “cancel button” here This is hardly an isolated occurrance, as you well know. So we have all of Big Tech acting in concert to ban what they deem wrongthink -- but, oh no, that's definitely not a power structure! Nothing to see here, folks!

Yes, because it’s certainly plausible that the leadership of Big Tech that are always at each other’s throats to dominate their corner of the digital market would want to put aside any such differences in direction, and decide that this is the one issue that they could show a United front on because this after all is what affects their goals of market dominance.

It’s this that dominates the meeting of their leadership, who are always just hanging out with each other, combing through a list of things to cancel, put together a coordinated plan to cancel the thing, and then — in secret, nobody should know! - execute on that. Because what else could they possibly be bothered with?

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#705

Post by ceilingcorner »

dandare wrote: post #679

RE books not suitable for kids. My 4 year old asked me to reed him a new book he got from who knows where; It was Noah's Ark picture book, looking like this https://www.google.com/search?q=noah%27s+ark+child+book . Right on the third page "God killed all people because they were wicked". My son was upset and demanded an explanation, which I struggled to provide. I have realised how strange it is that we tolerate chil…

> which I struggled to provide.

I don't mean to be rude, but this mostly just sounds like you're not knowledgeable on the topic.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#706

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

ipsum2 wrote: post #72
notJim wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what happened. This decision has actually been in the works for a while and involved a lot of discussion. > The decision to cease publication and sales of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company, which was founded by Seuss’ family, told AP https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-dr-... eBay has an existing policy that removes racist materials. They're just appl…

As someone mentioned above, Mein Kampf is still allowed: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...

I doubt there are many people buying Mein Kampf as a bedtime story for their children though

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#707

Post by dgellow »

wirrbel wrote: post #573
major505 wrote: post #96

I don't know any culture that banned books independent of their content that people didn't regret in the future. A few months ago I was reading about schools banning the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" because it contains basically the "n" word. I'm not american, and and havent read that book. I watched the movie, through, and it seemed to me to be a very anti racism message. I think instead of banning, schools should w…

Germany here, we banned Mein Kampf from being sold (used copyright law to do that). I once stood in a book shop (teenager, time to look at books but not enough money to buy them) and some skindheads wanted to buy it, it wasn't available. They went away. Providing context is good, but frankly also really difficult and why not just provide newer childrens books that are more inclusive.

Germany, the country, never banned the book. Instead the right owner, the state of Bavaria, decided to stop its distribution (until 2016 when the copyright expired and a commented version has been published).

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#708

Post by crististm »

inglor_cz wrote: post #636
JKCalhoun wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see anything to get excited about. It's just a sign that the pendulum is about to swing back in the other direction.

How? So far, the big platforms seem to be digging the hole of censorship deeper, and small platforms like Parler are deplatformed. Unless we find a way to circumvent the tight control that smartphone manufacturers have over devices they sell, the only possible haven of free speech would be web on a Windows PC with some specific browsers. Because Google adding you to a list of dirty webs means that people using Chrome…

Either it will swing back or its momentum will topple the base with it.

We've seen revolutions before and they were not pretty.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#709

Post by pineaux »

Udik wrote: post #655
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to. These are some children's books that contain illustrations that some people find offensive and the publisher (and sellers) are deciding they no longer want to be associated with and sell to children. There are internet forums where the images are available and people can view them without the police knocking your door down, and I'm sure these are available in…

> "utterly repugnant" You forgot to add: "to someone, probably a minority, possibly entirely wrong".

I have never understood why people add sentences like: "probably a minority" to their arguments. This is something that weakens your stand. Let me explain: If a minority (nerds/D&D-players,etc) gets bullied in school. Is them being a minority: A) a fact that aggrieves the bullying B) a non-relevant fact C) a fact that absolves the bullies from their wrong-doing?

Because it seems like you are implying that it's option C by making this comment.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#710

Post by thinkingemote »

djoldman wrote: post #327
slibhb wrote: post #301

It has to be made clear that this isn't about legality. It's also not about whether this "technically qualifies" as "banning" or "censorship". It's about what kind of society we want to live in. I want to live in an open society. I want to be able to watch movies and read books that offend people. I want to be my own censor and I want everybody to be their own censor. We're grown-ups, we can make decisions like this…

Not trying to be snarky but there are I believe more than enough stores happy to sell you whatever you want, even though eBay won't allow these books to be listed. I'm confused as to how eBay banning the listing of these books materially impacts people from getting them.

I hope this helps the confusion about why people are concerned: It's not about having temporary obstacles right now that are easy to get around, it's about the roadblocks that will be constructed in the future.

This is the "just make your own ${thing}" repeated in the past where ${thing} has progressively moved from: forum, messaging system, website, cloud service, internet platform, ISP provider, ICANN membership etc.

Because it's okay, approved and society thinks its good for one store to stop doing it means that it's okay for other stores, services, provider etc to also do it. It will and does happen as we have seen on Hacker News every week.

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