I normally try to avoid getting involved in political or religious discussions, but over the past two weeks, an issue that hits a little too close to home arose in the publishing world: book censorship.
It started when PayPal demanded that Smashwords stop selling erotica that features incest, bestiality, or rape. If Smashwords failed to comply, their PayPal account would be shut down. Worse, they were given a very short deadline. On Monday, February 27, Smashwords sent a letter to their authors asking them to voluntarily remove any of the offending material by the end of the week.
Here’s a recent update on the problem from Mark Coker, if you want more background:
Smashwords Update on Erotica Censorship
Naturally, authors were outraged. Many misguided souls raged at Smashwords, who is as much a victim in this as we are. Others raged at PayPal, who as it turns out, is actually enforcing the mandates of financial institutions and credit card companies. The real source of the problem goes deep into the financial network that fuels Internet sales.
Some suggested that Smashwords ditch PayPal and use another payment processor. That suggestion is not only impractical, it’s pointless. The problem goes way deeper than PayPal.
What we need is for all authors and readers to tell our financial institutions to stay out of the publishing business. The affected titles are legal: Legal to write, and legal to read. Legality should be the only issue of concern to the financial network.
By censoring legal books, our financial institutions are forcing their moral assessment of reading material on every author and reader in the country. Do you want some bank telling you what you can and can’t read? I sure don’t! The affected books aren’t the type of reading material I prefer, but I’m willing to defend the right of others to write and read them. Financial institutions have absolutely no business setting up a virtual book burning.
Mark’s update referenced above gives links to specific places where you can express your displeasure. But I encourage you to blog about this issue and take a stand as well. Even if you don’t read any of the affected material, surely you can see how arbitrary and subjective the criteria are for determining what books are being banned and which are not. The only valid criterion for restricting the publishing trade should be the legality of the transaction. There is nothing illegal about these transactions, so Mr. Banker, keep your morals out of my reading options.
