A particular bookseller choosing not to sell incest erotica does not constitute a book being "banned" or "censored", which only apply when the government forcibly prevents every bookseller from selling particular material.
I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.
This kind of exaggeration on the part of the blog author doesn't help her argument; it just causes people to (a) lose intellectual respect for the author and (b) give less credence to her argument.
> A particular bookseller choosing not to sell incest erotica does not constitute a book being "banned" or "censored", which only apply when the government forcibly prevents every bookseller from selling particular material.
Going by that logic, to "effectively" ban the book while not "technically" banning it, the govt just needs to pursue the top few channels to stop carrying it. Book will be effectively unavailable and everyone's conscience will be clean.
> I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.
But you would make that clear to everyone before starting to do business with them, right? Or if you decided to change your stand one day (which is quite plausible since things do change with time), you would perhaps offer a better reason then "Because I can"?
Going by that logic, to "effectively" ban the book while not "technically" banning it, the govt just needs to pursue the top few channels to stop carrying it. Book will be effectively unavailable and everyone's conscience will be clean.
Hey, that sounds familiar. Say, for example, that some organization releases a bunch of more or less secret stuff, and you want to prevent them from getting donations to continue releasing stuff, you could just lean a bit on VISA and Mastercard…
The government didn't tell Amazon to stop carrying the book, so your point is irrelevant.
> But you would...
Well I haven't really thought about that, because in reading the post, I was just distracted by the exaggeration that I pointed out in my original comment.
Exactly. The author is certainly free to put up a website with the stories in a Kindle-compatible, DRM-free format, making them available for free, or using some kind of payment system, perhaps voluntary.
By being knocked out of the store, the author loses easier access to readers, and payment processing. But the author is not blocked from publishing and getting his or her work on the kindle through routes other than Amazon.
I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.
This kind of exaggeration on the part of the blog author doesn't help her argument; it just causes people to (a) lose intellectual respect for the author and (b) give less credence to her argument.