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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

#591

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…

Thing is there is thin line between moderation/regulation and censorship.

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

#592

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…

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.

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

#593
post #29

What bothers me is the speed with which this process - "accused -> convinced -> executed" happens. We are not discussing things anymore. Today, you could tweet any accusations, and, no matter how ridiculous they look at first, it will lead to a race of who is taking them most seriously. Something definitely is broken. Look at what happened to the "okay". 4chan forced that meme 5 years ago in what they thought is a mi…

You just said it right there. It’s the speed of social media that does this.

Call me crazy, but haven’t we seen social media being manipulated (bots) to push narratives?

These accusations or problems crop up fairly quick and then the media gets on it and then whoever/whatever is destroyed.

If social media can be manipulated to swing stock markets or elections, then isn’t it possible it can swing to push narratives or keep us constantly fighting ourselves?

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

#594

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.

I read Mein Kamp when I was younger (in Australia) out of sheer curiosity, and found it to be rambling, poorly written junk, bordering on incoherent.

If you came away enlightened, you probably already held very strong Nazi tendencies before you even opened the book.

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

#595

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…

Thing is there is thin line between moderation/regulation and censorship.

The line is rather stark. eBay choosing not to facilitate the sale of books containing racist caricatures is not in the same ballpark as a government suppressing ideas. It’s not even the same sport.

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

#596
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom speech as defined in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." What we are seeing here is a consequence of our capitalist society. It is now more profitable for eBay and other companies to pull or ban thi…

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies. And the first amendment is not a definition of freedom of speech. Read it again.

I still don't see how stopping the sale of an item on a private company's platform equates to denying freedom of speech. If we were talking about a government banning the sale of a specific book, author, or topic, then I absolutely agree. If we are talking about that same government banning specific books from schools, then I absolutely agree. But I don't agree that eBay's move here is denying freedom of speech. They're just deciding what they do and don't want on their platform.

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

#597
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom speech as defined in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." What we are seeing here is a consequence of our capitalist society. It is now more profitable for eBay and other companies to pull or ban thi…

You’re being downvoted because people here would rather pretend to be heroes standing up to the “woke mob” than acknowledge the reality that nobody is forcing the Seuss estate or even eBay to do anything. No surprise that so many non-white people report problems in tech circles given the moral grandstanding on behalf of some caricatures going on here.

Censorship is censorship is censorship. The distinction of whether it is done by Ebay, government, bank, w/e is a distinction without meaning to the individual. US is maybe few steps away from China's social credit ( right now mildly distributed, but still with ridiculously big players able to effectively ban you from the market ).

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

#598

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.

I mean if a message goes across a distributed network and all the different nodes of the network independently decide to change their operation then there is no centralized power structure saying do this, even though it is effectively the same.

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

#599
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom speech as defined in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." What we are seeing here is a consequence of our capitalist society. It is now more profitable for eBay and other companies to pull or ban thi…

You’re being downvoted because people here would rather pretend to be heroes standing up to the “woke mob” than acknowledge the reality that nobody is forcing the Seuss estate or even eBay to do anything. No surprise that so many non-white people report problems in tech circles given the moral grandstanding on behalf of some caricatures going on here.

Lets not pretend there are hordes of people on Twitter ready to doxx, harass, publicly shame and do god knows what other things if you’re against the woke mob.

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

#600
post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies. And the first amendment is not a definition of freedom of speech. Read it again.

I still don't see how stopping the sale of an item on a private company's platform equates to denying freedom of speech. If we were talking about a government banning the sale of a specific book, author, or topic, then I absolutely agree. If we are talking about that same government banning specific books from schools, then I absolutely agree. But I don't agree that eBay's move here is denying freedom of speech. They…

You are correct in terms about application of current laws. The issue is more complex though. We tend to associate books with ideas and exchange thereof. Explicit ban of an idea raises all sorts of issues regardless of any other issues that may have been related to it.

In simple terms, is it a good idea to ban algebra if a vocal enough community of anti-algebra people convince ebay to not list it?

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