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Censoring books. There's an app for that.
message 51:
by
Pete
(new)
Mar 26, 2015 01:12PM
Can this app alter "debit" to "credit", so when I look at my online bank account it looks the way I like it?
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Will wrote: "Tim - they aren't altering it. The app changes how they read it, which is no different from me adjusting the volume on a piece of music or fast forwarding over a boring bit of a DVD. My kindle a..."
No, that is a false analogy. Changing the font size could be compared to adjusting the volume, and fast forwarding through music is clearly equivalent to fast forwarding through a book.
And highlighting passages of text does not in any way alter that text or make you see different words.
This app is equivalent to taking a piece of music and changing every occurrence of the note sequence "C sharp crotchet D quaver" to "E flat minim" and then saying "it only affects how you hear it, it doesn't change the tune."
It's not "customising your reading experience" any more than removing the C# string from a piano is "customising your listening experience".
Michael wrote: "If someone bought a print copy of the Mona Lisa and drew on it, would anyone care?"In theory, no. There are laws and exceptions to laws that specifically allow such things for the purposed of parody, pastiche, satire and so on.
Nevertheless, twelve people were brutally murdered a few months ago for doing just that to pictures of a long-dead Middle Eastern gentleman. This is the ultimate conclusion of allowing censorship, and why we must stand against it.
Michael wrote: "This app isn't censorship."You'll have to explain your statement please, Mikey.
Reading the article(s) has made me think of a cassette tape Dave bought in Saudi when he was working there.PJ Harvey, it was. Picture of her on the cover in a tank top. She'd been given sleeves with a black biro.
Damn right it's censorship.
Michael wrote: "This app isn't censorship."I see your point, to me, censorship is someone stopping me reading /watching /seeing something, this app allows you to buy a book and choose what you don't want to read. Although if I was that bothered, I personally wouldn't choose the book in the first place
This app isn't censoring anyone.The people who use it are buying the exact same version of the book that everyone else is buying. There is no attempt at suppressing what the author is saying. It's the equivalent of me buying a paperback book, passing it someone else to Tippex over the swear words, and then me reading that version.
I'd be quite interested in an app that, for example, Anglicised the names of the characters in my copy of War and Peace.
If Dave had bought an unaltered copy of the tape and then changed the cover of the sleeve himself, that wouldn't be censorship.That's similar to what this app is doing.
Michael wrote: "There is no attempt at suppressing what the author is saying. "That's *exactly* what the app is doing.
And how is "tippexing over the swear words" any different to the secret service censoring letters in WWII with marker pens? The latter is very clearly censorship. So why isn't the former?
Hmmm. I see your point.Did I 'censor' Wool by skip reading great chunks of it?
Now, if someone else had taken a biro to it...
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Did I 'censor' Wool by skip reading great chunks of it? "That was speed knitting. ;)
Tim, the situations are completely different.This app is not preventing an author from filling his books with expletives and selling them in the marketplace. If someone wants to read the unedited version of that book there are no barriers in place preventing or obstructing them from doing so.
Those that want the filtered versions are having to go out of their way to obtain it.
Tim wrote: "Michael wrote: "There is no attempt at suppressing what the author is saying. "That's *exactly* what the app is doing.
And how is "tippexing over the swear words" any different to the secret ser..."
Because it's our choice to download the app, buy a book through it and choose the level. The secret service decided what we could read
I suppose the difference is self censorship or having it forced upon you.
I think what Michael is fundamentally trying to say here is...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S3v-...
I assume that the app doesn't actually alter the book in the process? So that the next person to read that copy of the e-book can read the text as written?In which case, to be honest, it strikes me that a proportion of readers don't appear to have read the book the writer has written anyway, judging by their comments :-)
Tim - my hifi has controls to change the bass and treble of a piece of music. It has skip controls to move to the next track. It means that I can control the way I hear a piece of music. This is not censorship. The piece of music is not changed. The next person to experience it will get exactly the same starting piece of music that the musicians put out. And they will make their own choices about how they want to listen to it.
No-one loses out here. The author gets another sale from someone who would not otherwise buy their book. The reader gets a book that they can read. Other readers can choose whether to use the app or not. Everybody wins.
For me it's all about tolerance. I have no problem with swearing in a book, but I respect people who don't like to read expletives on every other page. This app gives them a way to read a book without having to stumble across a swear word that they would find offensive. It's like having a volume control on the profanity.
As a reader I will cheerfully skip passages that I find boring or offensive or I'm just not enjoying. That's my choice. The author ought to be grateful because it means that I am still reading the book and not giving up on it.
But if an author ever tries to tell me "no, no, no, you must go back and read the whole of the prologue" I would politely (ish) tell them to (expletive deleted) off. I've bought the book. I'll read it any way that I damn well choose to.
Gotta say I'm agreeing with Will here.
As loathsome as I personally find this app on a visceral level, I have to say I think I've been won over too.
I don't trust anything that runs a find+replace on text.I was very upset when I found that people were filling my erotica generator with keywords pertaining to minors, so I wrote a function to replace 'child', 'baby' etc with 'young consenting adult'.
This worked fine until it came up with the line: 'He massaged her back with young consenting adult oil'.
This is ridiculous. Read James Kelman (vernacular novels about the Scottish Working class/marginals) which are peppered with swears. The APP would have a melt down dealing with it. There is no way of the app making this book less offensive without fundamentally changing the book, or censoring it like the censor's blue pencil or the redaction rectangle. A reader who is sensitive to swearing is just not going to like James Kelman's work.
Marc - and it wouldn't help my elderly Mum to read Trainspotting or Fifty Shades. But then she isn't likely to anyway.It might help some people with some books. It may not be a big deal to you or me, but it matters to some people and it doesn't hurt us in the least. What's not to like?
It's not censorship because no-one is being censored.There's countless music apps that will let me put a drum and bass beat over, say, a David Bowie album.
Provided I don't attempt to force everyone else to be subject to the same changes, there's no harm being done.
How? It doesn't stop anyone from reading the full book. It doesn't change the book. It is something that the consumer would apply to their own books - only if they want to.It's a bit like the supermarket selling full fat milk next to the semi-skimmed. The consumer has a choice. No-one is forcing them to buy either type of milk.
This isn't censorship. It is increasing the freedom of the consumer to decide how they want to read a book.
that's the point, if you're likely to be offended by the choices the author has made, don't buy it. Buy semi-skimmed novel lite instead
The issue with mash ups and music sampling is one of copyright. it's true if it's for use only in your own bedroom, it is not an issue. Only if you broadcast it publicly. But there are grey areas over file sharing and cease and desist orders being issued.
Marc wrote: "that's the point, if you're likely to be offended by the choices the author has made, don't buy it. Buy semi-skimmed novel lite instead"That is indeed the point. Without this app some readers will be put off from reading some authors. That's a lost sale for the author and a lost opportunity for the reader. It's a lose-lose scenario.
Readers have a choice whether to use this app or not. If they like what the app does they can buy it. No-one would be hurt if someone uses this app to bleep out swear words.
If you don't like the app, then buy the full fat version of the book. And again nobody loses.
If anything, this app will help authors. If we know that these things exist we don't need to worry so much about offending people with the swearing in our books.
I assert my right to offend people. I also assert their right not to be offended by swerving my book. That is a consumption choice too. Not that I actually use all that many swear words, but certain ideas and situations may be offensive - I wouldn't expect militant pro-lifers to read a book with an abortion in it, they gonna make an app for that next?
Your rights are not being infringed in the least. You can write whatever you want (within the law). No-one is challenging that. This is not censorship.All that is happening is that some readers will exercise their rights in how they choose to read what you have written. You won't see them doing this. Your other readers won't see them doing it. It will happen in the privacy of wherever they choose to read their kindle.
Let's not get onto the thorny question of the right to offend (which arguably doesn't exist). This is about the right of consumers to make choices about how they consume. It has absolutely nothing to do with a writer's freedom to choose how to write.
any device which alters the artist's work without their consent is censorship, even if it is on an individual unit of the artist's work rather than every version of it.As to the right to offend, yes it probably isn't spelled out in the Universal declaration of Human Rights, but freedom of expression does not exist in any meaningful way without it being implicit that you have the right to offend. You do not have a right to incite through hate speech or other provocative expression designed to whip up emotions, but the line between incitement and offence is a tricky one to establish.
Book buyers have the right to doodle on my books, scratch out words or tear out pages, set fire to it. But I object to the provision of a 3rd party service to change the words the author has written. Especially one based on machine-based maths to deal with a complex, intricate organism such as language
Functionally this app is no different to scratching out words or tearing pages out.
I accept that, but I am troubled by it being a 3rd part app, rather than purely the decision of the reader with a pen in his hand. To me it's the difference between an individual (the reader's) decision and the implication that this exists across the board in the form of the device like a giant Monty Python foot, or a giant blue pencil - it gives it a legitimacy as if it's sanctioned by authorities other than a market
We are going round in circles. There is no censorship here. The full text is available at all times and the only changes are those that the reader chooses to make. Writers can object all they want, but they need to realise that they are writing for readers. Those readers have a right to read what they want and how they want. When writers start insisting on how I should read something, they really have lost the plot.
The right to offend isn't in any declaration of human rights because it didn't really exist until Salman Rushdie used it in a BBC interview in 2004.
There hasn't been much debate since then apart from people throwing the phrase around in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. People were quoting the "right to offend" as if it had been around for centuries. It hasn't. On the contrary, most definitions of the freedom of speech also included controls and restraints precisely to prevent an unfettered freedom to offend.
Sod it.I'm off to invent an app that puts clothes on the actors in porn films, so that prudish people can enjoy porn for the plots, storyline and excellent acting without all that troublesome nudity spoiling it for them.
the reductio ad absurdum of your argument is if you want the reader to read only what they expect, then why not get them to write the book? Their power lies at the till, just as the writer's power lies at the typewriter. Most rights haven't been around for ages,slavery was only ended in the 19th century, and still exists in areas of the world. As to Charlie Hebdo, you would put the rights of the murdering terrorists before those of the cartoonists? If they broke the law in France, they should be brought to trial. If they didn't, there is no right of offence to wield the assassin's veto. That is a clear dividing line.
I am happy to draw my line here, as temperamentally I see this device as censorship and temperamentally you do not and neither of our arguments will dissuade the other.
David wrote: "Sod it.I'm off to invent an app that puts clothes on the actors in porn films, so that prudish people can enjoy porn for the plots, storyline and excellent acting without all that troublesome nud..."
and the sets, don't forget we can watch & comment & enjoy the interior decor too. I know that's why i watch :-)
David wrote: "Sod it.I'm off to invent an app that puts clothes on the actors in porn films, so that prudish people can enjoy porn for the plots, storyline and excellent acting without all that troublesome nud..."
Could you please write one that removes the clothes in boring films? Or sport! Think how improved stupid football would be...
Marc - readers have a right to read a book or to ignore it. They can read every word or skip bits they don't like. In a paper book they can underline, rip out, deface, make notes. This is an electronic version of something that readers have been doing since the birth of writing. The right to offend isn't just a new right. It isn't a right at all. It has being claimed as a right without any consensus or legislation.
When it comes to Charlie Hebdo, people get confused between the actions of the terrorists (clearly illegal) and the so-called right to offend which does not exist. Just because the terrorists were wrong to murder it does not mean that Charlie Hebdo were right to publish their cartoons in the first place.
so you're in favour of a blasphemy law then to protect Islam against depictions of the Prophet (which is odd because none of us know what he looked like anyway). And if Muslims have a blasphemy law, then Christians will demand one too. And what about those who put religion: Jedi down on their census returns, they may feel the need for legislative protection against blasphemy, that their Lord doesn't actually exist or somesuch...The point is there are so many identity-based groups and cohorts in society, someone somewhere is going to find virtually everything in the public sphere offensive. The right to cause offence is a de facto right in such circumstances.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "David wrote: "Sod it.I'm off to invent an app that puts clothes on the actors in porn films, so that prudish people can enjoy porn for the plots, storyline and excellent acting without all that t..."
I'm led to believe by some ladies of my acquaintance that there is a DVD series which removes the clothes from some French rugby players:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dieux-Du-Stad...
Hope that helps.
Marc wrote: "and the sets, don't forget we can watch & comment & enjoy the interior decor too. I know that's why i watch :-) "Oh yes. There should be far more about how that Swedish plumber actually mends the washing machine for that poor unfortunate underdressed young lady too.
I think this is worth a read. A bit more nuanced than just crossing out the rude words:http://www.remittancegirl.org/2015/03...
David wrote: "I think this is worth a read. A bit more nuanced than just crossing out the rude words:http://www.remittancegirl.org/2015/03..."
now that is good
Oh, how ironic. O2 demands that I prove myself to be over 18 to view that site.
ha ha ha, didn't ask me! But I know RG personally
Rosen wrote: "This worked fine until it came up with the line: 'He massaged her back with young consenting adult oil'. .."You have to admit it's a brilliant line, hints of 'political correctness taken to excess etc.' :-)
Marc wrote: "so you're in favour of a blasphemy law then to protect Islam against depictions of the Prophet (which is odd because none of us know what he looked like anyway). And if Muslims have a blasphemy law, then Christians will demand one too. And what about those who put religion: Jedi down on their census returns, they may feel the need for legislative protection against blasphemy, that their Lord doesn't actually exist or somesuch......"Actrually we did have one but blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished in English (and I assume Welsh law but wouldn't like to comment on Scots or Northern Irish legal systems) in 2008.
