To think that Amazon should not be selling this book!!! <warning - upsetting content>

[LEMisafucker]

www.amazon.co.uk/To-Train-Up-Child-children/dp/1892112000

I don't have the words - this is actually a thread about a thread, but i thnk this needs more attention so posting here. There have been convictions for murder in the states by folk following this book. Yet it is still published

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1915841-Has-the-world-gone-completely-mad

Link to original thread

Hell just froze over ...I agree with flatpack!

I do though . The book is vile but it should not be banned ...I like crime fiction, in the wrong hands that could be ' dangerous' where do you draw a line?

That's the exact definition of banning the book Joyful. Not allowing it to be sold or asking people to not sell it.

How do you think books get banned? By people insisting no one sell them.

censorship is absolutely not the same as asking a retailer not to sell something.

censorship is top down state suppression of ideas and opinions being circulated.

amazon have removed plenty of items for sale in the past, it is up to them whether to give authors a platform for selling. Look at the recent furore about WHSmith removing self published child porn books being marketed as 'erotica' - whats the flipping difference?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24519179

This book is also self-published by the way - no actual publisher would touch it - is that censorship too? its not a valid argument.

this is requesting not enforcing - amazon dont have to listen and sadly probably wont unless enough people find it unacceptable and take their business away.

no - books get banned by government censorship prohibiting their sale by law - making the sale or purchase or posession of a book an offence.

The difference is child pornography is illegal. This book isn't.

link again

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24519179

would you 'fight for the death' to get WHSmith selling these again?

writing about child pornography isnt illegal actually - no

No, because that was illegal.

This is not.

As I've said over and over and over again. But y'all are too busy getting your pitchforks ready to listen to reason.

So get it banned. Be proud of yourselves for it. Start a MN campaign even.

Bored now.

missfliss

censorship is absolutely not the same as asking a retailer not to sell something.

That's precisely what it is.

In fact, it's worse. The reason it's worse is that with government censorship, it's in the open and it can be roundly condemned for the wickedness it is.

This sort of back-door censorship is far worse, because it's done by meddling busybodies with too much time on their hands, who think that the only way to live is their way, and that anything that doesn't fit in to their way of life is bad and should be censored.

It's worse because it doesn't have any legal or democratic backing. It's the worst kind of self-centred bullying and it's something that MN does extremely well. Look at their 'campaign' against internet porn that David Cameron thinks is so brilliant.

"I haven't read the book and don't intend to.

But I will fight to the death their right to write it and publish it.

They have broken no laws by writing the book. You are trying to legislate thought. That is a very dangerous road to go down."

^this.

oh jesus how childish.

those self published books were not Illegal- they (WHSmith) removed the titles because they caused offence and contravened their own 'acceptable content policies'

if you cannot actually see the difference between top down banning of books by the state (censorship) and asking one retailer to remove to remove it from sale voluntarily - then - well sigh

'fight to the death' to protect amazon selling whatever they flipping well want to, and then go on and infer anyone who disagrees that they might care what their customers think commercially is just a pitchfork waving peasant on a witch hunt.

sigh.

i could make up bullshit insults to belittle your opinion too flatpack - but thats not really debating a point is it?

on the definition of censorship - we could go round in circles - i disagree with your view and say it is top down suppression by govt or media, not a retailer deciding that enough consumers find an item for sale offensive.

There is a difference between 'asking' and 'imposing'

I don't see how this campaign is so very different from say the Nestle one? I don't buy their products as I don't like the way they promote formula feeding. I've just told Amazon I won't buy from them because I don't like their decision to keep selling this book. We make our moral choices on a daily basis. How is this wrong?

well said bearhug. Commerical pressure by voting with your £ is not the same as advocating banning something. last time i checked amazon wasnt a state controlled media outlet - just a retailer who can decide what they will and wont sell.

'fight to the death for their right to say it'

Wow. That does sound all noble and impressive. I am all impressed. Is there a soundtrack I could get hold of?

Are we confusing their right to say it with 'Massive-retailer-who-doesn't-stock-loads-of-shit's responsibility to stock it'?

amazon selling this and making it available 'rubber stamps' it in the eyes of consumers. It also means the book will be actively promoted by them in buying metrics, shopping basket anaylsis and 'similiar title' mailings pushed out to customers.

I can see Godwins law being invoked soon..

what if this was a book encouraging men to rape their wives/girlfriends

Well, how many MN readers have paid coin of the realm to buy a copy of "Fifty Shades"?

Clever line, missfliss. Can't think why Adolf Hitler would ever have to come anywhere near a discussion of bookburning and its sordid sisters, book bans and Mumsnet campaigns, though. Hitler NEVER went in for that censorship malarkey, right?

Flatpackhamster, bless his or her narky socks, is in the right.

your point is what maltesefalcon?

My point is the same as namechanges, whats the difference between people finding a businesses activities questionable (amazon selling this, nestle promotion formula to breastfeeding mothers in the third world) and asking them to stop the aforementioned activities ?

My point is that this is not censorship. Somebody has already brought up the burning books analogy. Eventually somebody was bound to bring it up. Comparing people that want this removed voluntarily by a retailer that i spend money with is not the same as nazism.