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.
> eBay choosing not to facilitate the sale of books containing racist caricatures is not in the same ballpark as a government suppressing ideas.
The problem is that over time companies are consolidating into a few monopolies which are entirely out of public control, and these companies effectively control almost all distribution.
It depends what “power controlling entity” you see being the risk - is it the elected government or is it large powerful corporations with unelected leadership?
It is the same core sport, just a different team playing with less rules.
>> The problem is that over time companies are consolidating into a few monopolies which are entirely out of public control,(...)
The problem is Far bigger than that, and the implications are indeed frightening. And Why is that... simply because a societal precedent has been set which could allow the Government to use this as a linchpin to control All speech and by default All Thought. When you control what people can say you also control what they think.
I agree. I think both the elected government and these monopolies are actively harming people. However, eBay's refusal to sell children's books with racist caricatures is not the vanguard of some effort by those power structures to consolidate power; after all, racist imagery has been used for centuries to consolidate power in America.
These companies don't operate on the same kind of logic as the courts do - this sets no precedent. Amazon and eBay could block the sale of any book tomorrow if they wanted to; they could have done it yesterday, as well. The real power these structures espouse is to get us bickering over children's books, rather than devoting our energies towards things that actually matter.
I did Not say "Legal Precedent". And it is Absolutely an "example" of Society believing that certain ideas, and not necessarily racism (and to be clear if you are a racist you are a complete idiot, and beneath contempt); should Not be allowed to be expressed.
"The real power these structures espouse is to get us bickering over children's books, rather than devoting our energies towards things that actually matter."
Took a while to find a comment that sees to the heart of the issue.
They are exactly the same because you can use the racism blanket to suppress criticism of real issues. Speaking out against the actions of the Chinese government? Racist! Speaking out against the actions of the VP? Racist!
This. I wouldn't even call it sport. What ebay does is sport: it's pretty inconsequential, but many people are mad about it. If the government would do it, it would be the opposite: very consequential, but probably not a lot of people who'd be mad.
It might be a thinner line than you think: At the end of the day, governments and private companies are both just big entities with strong influence, specially in monopoly situations. Consider this: If ebay and amazon simultaneously ban one specific book, author, genre, etc.; how much would that decrease their reach?
There's two different aspects to be considered here: What you seem to be mostly worried about is direct legal consequences to speech, like being imprisoned for saying the wrong thing. Protecting people from that is important, but freedom of opinion and expression is more than just that.
But more important than that is the societal aspect: censorship is ultimately a propaganda tool. You don't have to imprison people to silence ideas; simply hiding them from the public is more than enough.
The reason this is the more important of the two is because it is what influences public opinion. Propaganda is an incredibly powerful political tool and freedom of expression is, also an opposing force to it.
Admittedly this is going to be a really shitty analogy, but in some cases your reach is so decreased that it's effectively gone.
If you want to host some incredibly terrible text or blog, and magically no DDoS protection provider at all wants to protect you because you're such a terrible person, your reach is 0%, you are knocked off instantly and down 24/7. The government or state never had to say a thing.
In many parts of US, Walmart might be the only store people have access to, it is infeasible to get anywhere else. Having to drive several hours to the nearest city is practically reducing reach to nothing.
This obviously doesn't apply to people that can pop on Craigslist and pick up a copy of a book, or order it from eBay, or any of the hundreds of other shops that might have it. But there is a huge amount of the country where you are quite literally down to one or two retailers. Partially due to those one or two retailers completely taking over the area and outpricing every small shop there is.
In my opinion, changing offensive parts in new edition would've been moderation. Unpublishing them and banning the sale of the books on the largest used book platform is much closer to censorship.
