Interesting Links for 27-02-2012

[andrewducker]

• Paypal forces publisher to censor themselves
  (tags: writing censorship paypal )
• On feminism
  (tags: feminism )
• Scotland and Ireland in the British Parliament
  (tags: ireland independence politics uk scotland )
• Spain will not veto an independent Scotland joining EU
  (tags: independence uk scotland eu spain )
• Kripke resigns as report alleges that he

Comments

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah. I thought the comment about the first ammendment was telling: the constitution doesn't prevent anyone from infringing your speech, but the case where someone is a monopoly or a de facto monopoly is one where perhaps it should...

[cartesiandaemon]

(With the obvious caveats that PayPal don't prevent you telling people in person, or of giving your ebook away for free, but it's still a significant problem that anyone has an nonaccountable stranglehold over anything published. If they have that power they cna shut down all sorts of stuff without a whiff of bad publicity, just by people thinking "I'd better not take the risk", if not at their own recognisance, at the suggestion of ill-thought-out and vandalistic government intervention.)

[cartesiandaemon]

Oh yes, exactly. I assume PayPal don't really care themselves (though they might), they're just playing it safe (either because they have to, or because it's a lot easier than trying to police what's ok where) which is very understandable, but doesn't necessarily lead to the most desireable effect on society.