2009-04-13 09:21
digitaldiscipline
Private companies are allowed to suppress stuff.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/censorship
Please put the First Amendment down before you hurt yourselves.
This is just like private citizens can decree that stuff is off-limits in their house, writ large.
It's stupid and unfortunate (and, hopefully, accidental), but it's not censorship.
Note: I'm not suggesting that I think what happened over the weekend is good (in fact, I can understand why a lot of people are very, very unhappy about it); however, Amazon, or any other company, are completely within their rights to do something like this. Obviously, it comes at a huge cost in terms of public opinion, but that's a business decision completely separate from any sort of discussion over the moral or social impact of it, beyond how it impacts the bottom line.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/censorship
Please put the First Amendment down before you hurt yourselves.
This is just like private citizens can decree that stuff is off-limits in their house, writ large.
It's stupid and unfortunate (and, hopefully, accidental), but it's not censorship.
Note: I'm not suggesting that I think what happened over the weekend is good (in fact, I can understand why a lot of people are very, very unhappy about it); however, Amazon, or any other company, are completely within their rights to do something like this. Obviously, it comes at a huge cost in terms of public opinion, but that's a business decision completely separate from any sort of discussion over the moral or social impact of it, beyond how it impacts the bottom line.
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