Hacker News Reader

You have to know there is a difference between a private company not selling a bigoted book, and a government banning all books which criticize it

View on HN

So if our lives are effectively controlled by huge corporations, then we should accept that simply because they are technically companies and not the government?

No, and we should criticize how companies allow access to their platforms, but just because something was denied access to a platform doesnt inherently make it a free speech issue

This is not fighting corporations, this is getting bogged down in culture wars

The solution to that problem is to break up monopolies that have too much power.

We know. But you also know, if there are monopolies, even if they are private, they can meaningfully limit the flow of ideas in a way that is highly problematic.

And the term censorship is broad, and isn't specific to private entities versus government. Just because we don't have a Soviet-style government (good), doesn't mean that automatically everything is free and open. If I buy out all of a particular work of art and burn it in a bonfire, I've committed censorship. If not illegal, it should at least elicit some moral eyebrow-raising, no?

everyone keeps saying this, but ive yet to see the numbers that prove ebay is a monopoly, especially since the books are available for free online

Reply on news.ycombinator.com