Ebay offensive material policy - Just the beginning of censorship, already happening? Whats the scoop? 3 3

[Prince Namor]

56 minutes ago, Nic8612 said:

At this point if you think Facebook and Twitter aren't state sponsored, you're just being naive.

STATE sponsored? Are you getting your code words mixed up?

You many be right in what you mean though - Facebook and Twitter MAY be Government Sponsored. It just happens to be the Russian Government. 

You mean they get kick backs/favors from the Government?

What millionaire/billionaire DOESN'T? 

56 minutes ago, Nic8612 said:

Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos weild more power and influence than our own government.

The battle for the hearts and minds of the blind and stupid.

56 minutes ago, Nic8612 said:

They're calling the shots now, not Washington

They are? Tell 'em thank you for getting out those stimulus checks finally.

[Nic8612]

7 minutes ago, Prince Namor said:

It just happens to be the Russian Government. 

 

This tells me all I need to know about who I'm trying to have a debate with

 

And thank you SOOOOO much Big Brother for dropping a few measley dollars down to us after a YEAR from your ivory towers while you shower BILLIONS on your corporate friends

Edited March 15, 2021 by Nic8612

[Prince Namor]

1 hour ago, underthebigw said:

What's the cliche about monopolies--its not the fact that a company is a monopoly that is illegal, it's how they use that monopoly power.  Using it to ban books or ideas on their platforms may be within their rights, but using it to ban them on other platforms and inhibiting the ability of others to create a competing platform, is outrageous.  Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have long ago crossed the line from private companies into quasi public institutions and should likely be treated as radio and television are. 

That IS what's happening. Facebook and Twitter spread so much BS propaganda over the last few years that they're finally being held accountable for it.

NOW... if some group uses their platform to... oh I don't know, maybe try and break into the Smithsonian Institute and wreck havoc, they can be held accountable for it. Radio and TV LONG ago drowned out the voices of the common man. 

1 hour ago, underthebigw said:

Can you imagine if in the 1920's, ONE company monopolized radio and prevented all others from going live.  The country would be much worse off for it, and much less free.  This is essentially what is happening here.

Not even close. And ALL media in America is essentially monopolized anyway by a handful of major corporations, all of which have huge financial ties to the government, including the one's YOU think are pure.

[Prince Namor]

13 minutes ago, Nic8612 said:

This tells me all I need to know about who I'm trying to have a debate with

Have some more Kool-Aid.

13 minutes ago, Nic8612 said:

And thank you SOOOOO much Big Brother for dropping a few measley dollars down to us after a YEAR from your ivory towers while you shower BILLIONS on your corporate friends

Same thing happened last term didn't it?

[Nic8612]

6 minutes ago, Prince Namor said:

Have some more Kool-Aid.

Same thing happened last term didn't it?

Yes it did. Both parties are full of bull, but congrats on judging someone based on your incorrect assumption about who you thought they voted for.

 

"Tolerance"

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by Nic8612

[Rip]

4 hours ago, Prince Namor said:

Maybe I can put it in a way you'll understand:

PUBLICLY - that means it has universal access. It isn't banned. It's available.

A PRIVATE COMPANY - banning it means it's STILL available - you can still find it - you can still read it or watch it or eat it or whatever you do with it - just not through THAT one individual PRIVATE company.

That is why this isn't considered censorship on the scale we think of it.

Some company doesn't carry it. You have plenty of other options to find it elsewhere. 

Case in point - If I Ran the Zoo - If I want to READ it - I can still read it for FREE on Amazon.

Most of us don't see that as censored. The POINT of censoring something is to ELIMINATE access to it because it's considered dangerous. Don't look! 

It's still very much available to read despite what ONE PRIVATE company decided was best for them at this time.

 

The whole point of censorship in America wasn't to impede your ability to flip books on eBay.

It was to stop you from reading or seeing stuff that some considered naughty or dangerous to the mass ideology. They wanted to eliminate it from your MIND.

That isn't the case here.

If you want to READ it or see the pictures from it - it's at your fingers tips instantly.

THAT is why we scoff at the notion that THIS is censorship.

In our debate public seemed to include accepted censorship like within a library, college, town state etc. The web browser was also used as an example of why its not censorship.

My point was we STILL have those options private or public.

Just go to a different town or library. Despite what ONE public, library, college, town state does. 

Does the use your of web browser or a car stop these accepted places (town, college, etc) from becoming censorship.
I would say no.

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by Rip

[Prince Namor]

31 minutes ago, Nic8612 said:

Yes it did. Both parties are full of bull, but congrats on judging someone based on your incorrect assumption about who you thought they voted for.

 

"Tolerance"

 

I never mentioned anything about who you voted for.

Your the one who said: This tells me all I need to know about who I'm trying to have a debate with

"Tolerance"

[Prince Namor]

32 minutes ago, Rip said:

In our debate public seemed to include accepted censorship like within a library, college, town state etc. The web browser was also used as an example of why its not censorship.

Right. Some things are not going to be accepted for those places. Pornography, Graphic Violence... Hate speech... Revolution...

32 minutes ago, Rip said:

My point was we STILL have those options private or public.

Just go to a different town or library. Despite what ONE public, library, college, town state does. 

We have the world at our fingertips on a smart phone. The library doesn't want you to access that information, you can get it somewhere else, before you're even out the doors of the library.

32 minutes ago, Rip said:

Does the use your of web browser or a car stop these accepted places (town, college, etc) from becoming censorship.
I would say no.

Are community standards censorship? 

Most 'community standards' would say, no pornography at the library. Is that censorship? Is that acceptable?

NOW it is. You can get it anywhere you want.

When you eliminate the option from everyone, you have effectively censored something. When you're simply deciding that's not what you want within your place of business, that's everyday commerce.

It's incredibly difficult to censor anything today. The outside options are just too great.

[Nic8612]

56 minutes ago, Prince Namor said:

I never mentioned anything about who you voted for.

Your the one who said: This tells me all I need to know about who I'm trying to have a debate with

"Tolerance"

It tells me you blindly believe what's being fed to you

And you pretty clearly insinuated I was "drinking the Kool aid" and supported the previous administration

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by Nic8612

[theCapraAegagrus]

15 minutes ago, Nic8612 said:

It tells me you blindly believe what's being fed to you

And you pretty clearly insinuated I was "drinking the Kool aid" and supported the previous administration

No matter how many times you tell a wall that it's made from brick, it will never understand.

[HuddyBee]

2 hours ago, Prince Namor said:

It just happens to be the Russian Government. 

LOL

So much for not getting political

Edited March 15, 2021 by HuddyBee

[Unca Ben]

IBTL 

[rjpb]

So it looks like you can't use "bondage" in an auction title anymore (at least in the books:magazines category) without ebay telling you it violates their adult content policies and not allowing the item to post. However "torture" is apparently still okay. They haven't scrubbed older listings, but this isn't a matter of responding to report, but words that will cause an automatic rejection. 

[underthebigw]

The entire situation is fraught with absurd danger to both free speech and the dissemination of ideas.  I have always thought comic creators and the CBLDF carried things too far, but this is the perfect example of the dangers of allowing any censorship 

What happens if anyone throws a label of racism at any major work of literature?  Does every online platform start purging book sales?  Say someone claims Ayn Rand’s works are inherently racist because merit and ability trumps all else, and race bears no consideration. Do Facebook, Amazon, etc band the sale of these books?  I don’t really give a about Rand, but that is pretty scary  

Think of Seuss as a test run. It can only get worse. 

 

(Just to be clear, it could be any other “....ist”, for that matter)

Edited March 15, 2021 by underthebigw

[lordbyroncomics]

Am I wrong (sincerely asking, not framing this as a challenge or statement) in understanding that they are essentially pulling and restricting things from circulation out of them being offensive by today's standards but not boycotting them... meaning, it isn't illegal to have these things, they're just not going to be continued in print or still available to look through in a library or something. If that's the case, I guess that could seem frustrating for some people but if they're not illegal to look at or try to obtain, is it really "banned" or "cancelled"? 

[HuddyBee]

On 3/15/2021 at 1:22 PM, wisbyron said:

If that's the case, I guess that could seem frustrating for some people but if they're not illegal to look at or try to obtain, is it really "banned" or "cancelled"? 

That's what the debate was about earlier. It was primarily about whether or not private companies can engage in corporate censorship. And I would say, censorship doesn't have to be a manner of illegal vs legal.

This is a rather extreme example but imagine if every retailer in the country decided to no longer sell "book x," (which is perfectly within the rights of the retailers). It's not illegal to buy or sell this book, but because no retailers are distributing it, it essentially becomes impossible. The only way to obtain this "book x" physically would be to create a copy for yourself or buy one from a peer. So while not banned or censored in a legal sense by the government. Corporate censorship has essentially effectively censored this "book x" at least in physical form.

What a lot of people see here (including myself) is a smaller miniature version of that. A far-cry from most forms of legal censorship, I still believe one could classify this as a form of corporate censorship, and though not illegal on eBay's part, it still is rather alarming.

Edited March 17, 2021 by HuddyBee

[lordbyroncomics]

46 minutes ago, HuddyBee said:

That's what the debate was about earlier (before it descended into personal attacks from an individual who shall remain nameless). It was primarily about whether or not private companies can engage in corporate censorship. And I would say, censorship doesn't have to be a manner of illegal vs legal.

This is a rather extreme example but imagine if every retailer in the country decided to no longer sell "book x," (which is perfectly within the rights of the retailers). It's not illegal to buy or sell this book, but because no retailers are distributing it, it essentially becomes impossible. The only way to obtain this "book x" physically would be to create a copy for yourself or buy one from a peer. So while not banned or censored in a legal sense by the government. Corporate censorship has essentially effectively censored this "book x" at least in physical form.

What a lot of people see here (including myself) is a smaller miniature version of that. A far-cry from most forms of legal censorship, I still believe one could classify this as a form of corporate censorship, and though not illegal on eBay's part, it still is rather alarming.

Thanks for this answer.

[MetalPSI]

Interesting thread 

I'll just go ahead and state, what people think of what is a personal attack has DRAMATICALLY changed in the last five years alone.

Again, people interpret differently, but in how I perceive things, these issues are combined in what I would call a culture shift. Not so much as being woke, as it is confusing and kinda stupid, actually 

[Prince Namor]

3 hours ago, Nic8612 said:

It tells me you blindly believe what's being fed to you

Not sure what you think is being fed to me - I don't watch the news or read the papers...

Oh I know - I don't agree with what you're saying. That means I must be one of 'them.'

Lol

3 hours ago, Nic8612 said:

And you pretty clearly insinuated I was "drinking the Kool aid" and supported the previous administration

I never said who's Kool-Aid you were drinking, just that you were drinking someone's.

[ttfitz]

15 hours ago, Rip said:

I again think that maybe you are conflating the First Amendment with censorship. But perhaps in an opposite way.

Not at all. I haven't conflated anything, because I don't believe that all censorship is a First Amendment issue, and have never said anything of the sort. In fact, I have given examples of censorship that don't fall under the First Amendment.

That's the only part of your message I'm going to address directly, because I can't really make out what point you are trying to make, nor do I feel like you have followed along with what I said - you pull half a point out of a statement to attempt to refute another half of a statement, where the missing parts are what makes for the difference. At least that's how it reads to me. So instead, I will try to summarize as best I can what I've been saying, and leave it at that.

In the area of speech/expression, actions in regards to them are either censorship or not censorship. The actors in those situations are either public institutions or private ones. So, that gives us 4 categories. I'll start with the easiest:

1) Public institutions acting in a way that constitutes censorship

This would include almost anything a public institution does against a form of speech/expression. First Amendment.

2) Public institutions acting in a way that is not censorship

I can't offhand think of anything, although I leave the possibility that there might be something.

3) Private institutions acting in a way that constitutes censorship

Very little fits in this category, largely due to the availability of other private options. I gave the example before of blurring of an image on a television show that isn't available otherwise.

4) Private institutions acting in a way that is not censorship

Pretty much any action that constitutes whether they support that speech/expression or not. In the case in hand, eBay hasn't stopped (ie prohibited) anyone from buying and selling these particular Dr Seuss books - they have just decided they don't want to be part of that transaction. They are, in fact, exercising their own free expression by deciding this.

And, once again, the reason that the exact same action changes from not censorship to censorship is the power of the state. Yes, a smaller public entity has a harder time these days in suppressing speech - your attempt to throw my browser statement back at me - but that does not change the nature of their actions, it just means the attempted censorship doesn't work so well. As said, when the entity is public it becomes a First Amendment issue.