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- Amazon fail: straight outta Bantown?
So. Amazon did something that caused homosexuality-related books to become much harder to find through their system. Given Amazon's market position that is a big deal for anyone buying or selling such books. Some say it extends to feminism-related books, or certain other kinds of books; I'm not fully convinced of its scope. Most people agree that it doesn't extend to much if any heterosexual porn. There is also much debate and speculation over exactly what, technically, Amazon did, and to what degree the books were automatically as opposed to manually selected. I'm sure nobody on the Net will be surprised by what happened next. The part that interests me is an item by "tehdely" in which he claims that the whole affair was orchestrated by trolls - and that so were
(13 April 2009)Strikethrough/Boldthrough, Nipplegate, and some other massive instances of Teh Drama. I'm interested in such things, of course, so here are a few thoughts.- Child porn panic claims another victim
This isn't even so unusual anymore: high school students exchanging naked pictures of themselves, school administrators concerned, one saves a picture as evidence, the picture isn't actually pornographic even by Loudoun County standards, but OMG HE'S POSSESSING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY!!!!, zero-tolerance, life ruined. Note that Loudoun County is the same place where they had the filtering software lawsuit in 1998; as one of the smarter commentators on the Wired article points out, if you're going to subject children to that kind of repression, what do you expect them to do a few years later when they're young adults? This kind of disaster is inevitable as long as we think it's a good idea to ban the mere possession of speech. Freedom of expression must be absolute. See also my comments from a few years ago on Nymphet and instigation, which I'd been meaning to move to my new site code and now looks like the right time. As I said then, if we treat the normal sexual behaviour of human beings - which absolutely starts at an age well under 18 - as a frightening aberration, then we guarantee that we will be frightened pretty often.
(8 April 2009)- Index of censorship
- Pages on censorship. (15 March 2009)
- Six Apart determined to destroy itself in blaze of idiocy
- The new owners of Livejournal have done some very stupid things in the last year or so, but the new "adult content" feature is one of the stupidest. I'd almost think they are deliberately trying to force the business to fail for the tax loss or something. (2 December 2007)
- On Kodomo no Jikan and instigation
A great deal has already been said about Seven Seas and Kodomo no Jikan/Nymphet. People who want to know about that stuff already do. There is just one thing relating to that mess that I'd like to comment on here; it concerns a point in Jason DeAngelis's first public statement on the subject. He has since retracted some of the statement, but the principle illustrated is more general than just this one incident.
(31 May 2007)- Some thoughts on Google in China
Lots of people are saying a lot of things about Google's recent announcement that they will obey Chinese censorship rules to filter their search results on their Chinese search engine. For a simple and graphic demonstration of the consequences, you can compare the image results for the query "Tiananmen" between regular (U.S.) Google and Google China. There are a few important points that people seem to have made either explicitly or by implication in this discussion, that I'd like to challenge. 新年快乐 to those celebrating the Year of the Dog, by the way.
(28 January 2006)- Edmonton Journal scales new heights of cluelessness on lolicon story
Okay, some time ago I reported on the arrest of a man in Edmonton for attempting to import what would be best described as hard-core lolicon manga (details below). Now, it's being reported (Anime News Network article, Edmonton Sun article) that he's received an 18-month conditional sentence, community service, and a fine.
(22 October 2005)- R. v. Beattie: stories illegal because the kids enjoyed it
This is a frightening decision (PDF here, recommended if you can read it because the quotations aren't properly marked up in the HTML) from the Ontario Court of Appeal in April of 2005. I found out about it while reading contemporaneous Justice Committee evidence (and my comments on that evidence were delayed, because this is more important). You must read this case. I'll say it again, you must read this case, even the disgusting quotes. It's important.
(16 June 2005)- 20 exceptions to prove C-20
- How the Canadian Government's absurd child pornography law forces courts to unravel arbitrarily complex fictional plots. (25 January 2003)