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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

#951

Post by _7hzo »

nindalf wrote: post #933
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #905

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can support the right to be a Nazi while strongly criticising it. People can say that they really think eBay is doing the wrong thing, and maybe even boycott them, without necessarily saying they should be forced by law to stock children's books that became out of fashion thirty seconds ago.

> You can support the right to be a Nazi while strongly criticising it. You have the luxury of never having seen your country and culture being taken over by Nazis. Never living with the regret of being tolerant of Nazis. I have. It sucks. It's so easy to talk in platitudes like this when you know your own life won't be affected in any way. How about supporting the right of QAnon adherents to spread their poisonous p…

It's easy to talk in platitudes that Nazis' free speech should be silenced when you've never lived somewhere with no free speech or been accused of being a Nazi.

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

#952

Post by mariksolo »

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…

On the bright side, maybe censorship will be what finally sparks the Linux Desktop.

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

#954

Post by bzbarsky »

illirik wrote: post #592
anonisko wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many people support the development of powerful weapons without considering what happens when their enemies get a hold of them.

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.

eBay has no problem facilitating the sale of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", or "Mein Kampf", or "laddie magazines", or cartoons of Muhammad, or any of a variety of other things that "denigrate people". So let's not pretend like this is a principled stand of some sort by eBay.

Leaving aside the question of whether the books in question actually denigrate people, what makes this case so special that eBay takes action? eBay is losing money by not allowing sales of the books; presumably they either feel like they would lose even more money if they did allow it or feel that the books are morally repugnant enough to be worth the loss. Any other options?

The second option does not seem to hold water given all the other things eBay allows. The first option leaves the question of why they would lose money. Digging into that is where you find the power structure you are refusing to see.

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

#955

Post by bzbarsky »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #756
sildur wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtual book burnings, virtual public shamings... We are stepping closer and closer to virtual middle ages...

A good old pillory in the town square ... some people are just assholes.

> A good old pillory in the town square

You mean like Twitter?

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

#956

Post by JeremyNT »

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…

> The key things with all of this, is that if enough people were to collectively have the courage to push back against this craziness it would stop...people recognizing that there is a problem is a good first step

Is that true though? The government is doing nothing here. There's nothing stopping anybody from owning these book or passing them around to somebody else. There's nobody in government stopping somebody from publishing these books.

What's happening is that a few megacorporations have acquired so much power they are beyond influencing. Are a few angry people going to vote with their wallets to defeat eBay? Please, there is no recourse - eBay has essentially no competition in its sector and is accountable to nobody but their shareholders.

And the publisher? Well, the publishers have lobbied for our politicians to grant them infinite copyright, so now they can do as they wish with our culture. If they choose to bury it and stop publishing, this is the right our politicians have agreed to give to them.

This isn't really a free speech issue at its heart, even if it feels like it. This is really a power imbalance where control in all sectors of commerce (and in almost every aspect of our lives) is being distilled into a handful of unassailable monopolists to whom our politicians have gradually ceded their power.

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

#957

Post by loveistheanswer »

jmull wrote: post #931
chmod600 wrote: post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is suggesting that eBay should be forced to facilitate the sale of a patticular book. The concern is over what society feels is shameful and how it's handled. Right now we are ashamed of things we shouldn't be and the remedy we're choosing is exclusion. That doesn't sound like a formula for success. On top of that, this is all being pushed by a tiny minority that has gained more power than we realized. Surely…

That's all fine. You think eBay should sell those books. I do too. My question is, who's decision is it to make? Yours? Mine? The government's (through laws or regulations)? Or ebay's?

Parents should be the ones deciding what their children should and should not read, not corporations.

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

#958

Post by therealjumbo »

jmull wrote: post #903
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…

If you believe in liberty as a principle don't you have to support ebay's decision to decide whether or not they want to sell a particular book? I don't understand their decision here, but so what? It's their store, why should you or I tell or anyone else them what to sell? Woke crazies try to impose their ideology on others by complaining and shaming on the Internet. I think you're doing the same thing here. The dif…

>Woke crazies try to impose their ideology on others by complaining and shaming on the Internet.

>I get worried when people promote the idea that compelling others speech is pro free speech. It's the modern newspeak.

That is essentially what the woke crazies do all the time by getting people fired and other economic consequences if they don't fall in line.

Conversely, I think other people are criticizing the decision of the company, and the company culture that lead to the decision. That's different than compelling speech or considering using the gov't to compel speech.

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

#959

Post by craftinator »

NeverFade wrote: post #831
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…

These are market-dominating book distributors like Amazon and eBay effectively deciding what people can and cannot read. The fact that a few people might still be able to view images of these books (illegally, as they are copyrighted) on some tiny closed forum on the internet isn't a real comfort. In the Soviet Union, there were also tiny isolated pockets where "forbidden books" were surreptitiously copied and read.…

> This is book-banning, pure and simple.

Have you looked up the definition of the word "banned"?

"to prohibit, forbid, or bar;"

These books are no longer being published; this is a legal freedom that the publisher has. They are no longer sold on Amazon; this is a freedom Amazon has. They are still available somewhere in the US, they are still legal to read, and they are still legal to own. This isn't banning, this is becoming distasteful to the market.

They have simply become less convenient to acquire.

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

#960

Post by tibbydudeza »

bzbarsky wrote: post #955
tibbydudeza wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good old pillory in the town square ... some people are just assholes.

> A good old pillory in the town square You mean like Twitter?

Nope ... real rotten tomatoes ... not virtual ones.
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