Google has quietly announced changes to its Blogger free-blogging platform that will enable the blocking of content only in countries where censorship is required. Twitter announced technology last week addressing the same topic. It said it had acquired the ability to censor tweets in the countries only where it was ordered removed, instead of on an internet-wide basis.
[Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/google-censoring-blogger/]
In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
[Source: http://markprobst.livejournal.com]
...Basically, any title that Amazon consider "adult" will no longer be included in the "Best Sellers" lists – or ranked at all. These titles will not show up on all searches, even when the exact title of the book is entered. Who decides what books are "adult"? That’s not at all clear. But whoever’s making the choices is casting the net far and wide, and hauling in an awful lot of GLBT books...A comment to the article about this issue on the SeattlePi site says:
[Source: http://www.dailykos.com]
It's not that the books are no longer listed. If you search for a book by title or author, you will still be able to find it.Here is a disturbing example of the results for searching homosexuality on Amazon:
Rather, it's that those of us with books that have been deranked no longer have our books in the bestselling book ranks, where they appeared before (and would still appear, as that is based on our sales) nor listing under the subject headings in lists for our subjects/genres.
So, unless someone is coming unto Amazon and looking for our book by title or author, they are unlikely to find it. That's a huge issue for authors -- especially those of us who are marginal in some way to begin with -- as often consumers browse those lists to find our books.
Our research shows that these books have lost their ranking: "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs; "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown, "Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel, "The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1" by Michel Foucault, "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison (2005 Plume edition), "Little Birds: Erotica" by Anais Nin, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (1997 Knopf edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 W.W. Norton edition) and "Becoming a Man" by Paul Monette, which won the 1992 National Book Award.Books that remain ranked include: "Naked" by David Sedaris; "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller; "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis; "Wifey" by Judy Blume; "The Kiss" by Kathryn Harrison; the photobooks "Playboy: Helmut Newton" and "Playboy: Six Decades of Centerfolds"; "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs; "Incest: From 'A Journal of Love'" by Anais Nin; "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (2007 Vintage International edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 Penguin Classics edition).
Certianly many of the books that are no longer ranked are no more "adult" than many of those that are...
[source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/]
This sounds like a big old bowl of BS, does it not? Especially when you consider the fact that Amazon has vibrators, clitoral stimulators and anal plugs available in their search system with sales ranks attached. One wonders why these items are allowed to remain in the system with sales ranks while books including gay and lesbian content, themes, and even, as a commenter points out, autobiographies of gay and lesbian authors such as Stephen Fry, are deemed too "adult" for such things.
[Source: http://jezebel.com/]
“The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.”
– Henry Steel Commager
(quote found on the wall at Adult Content Removed)
Thanks for coming back nebulosis (sic). I would agree with you generally speaking. And I would also say… um… so? There are a hellovalot more of what i call “blah blah blah blah” galleries out there than there are galleries showing anything interesting. ( these are galleries that have their hands over their ears and are saying “blah blah blah, im not listening to you… its still 1865 its still 1865 its still 1865″ — then down the street is another one that is saying “its still 1945, its still 1945″ etc etc. ).To which I responded:Most of the stuff in the world is crap. always was always will be… what was it that drove you to particularly point this one out? And do you have any awesomely bad examples to point to that we can all enjoy?
I definitely agree, Jay, that most of the world is crap. But what drove me to rez this particular piece was a box that isn’t there anymore.Sometime last week I had been strolling through the grounds of BIW and came across a box with a mosaic of generic avatar portraits all over it, with the hover-text “Touch/Click me for invitation to a gallery of SL Photography” — and it just annoyed the shit out of me to see it — so I rezzed the box that you are sitting on in the above picture.
Fortunately, I took a picture of the two side-by-side; I’ve just posted it to Flickr (and I expect it will piss off some people):
Below the pic I added a caption, elaborating a bit further:The box on the left is something I rezzed at Brooklyn Is Watching last week, in response to the box on the right.So there you have it.
(The box on the right has floating text which reads:
"Touch/Click me for invitation to a gallery of SL Photography"
The box I rezzed also has floating text, which reads: "Touch/click me for no apparent reason -- SL photography is fucking bullshit")
While SL snapshots/photos can be interesting to look at, I don't consider 99.9% of them to be anything more than mere snapshots -- I don't care how much Photoshopping went into it.
There are & have been a rare few individuals who can elevate it to an art form, but SL snapshots do not equal "instant-art" any more than random real-life snapshots do.
Perhaps the thing that irks me the most about SL photography -- and what has put me off about it as a medium altogether -- is the bandwagon mentality. It's trendy; it's a "me-too" hobby; it appeals to the 15-seconds-of-fame seekers. Most people who get into it never before had an artistic urge in their lives; and once they get bored with Second Life, they most likely will never do anything creative again. It's just a passing fascination for them.
ART is not a fucking hobby or a trend or a fad, it's a fucking way of LIFE, it IS life; and if you don't feel that way about your art, then you're NOT a fucking artist, you're a hobbyist at best & a phony at worst, so don't CALL yourself an artist simply because it sounds cool.
And, as I said -- I find many SL snapshots to be interesting to look at, but I don't consider them to be art. I don't take my SL pics seriously, either. They're fun to take, fun to play around with, and a cool way to document what I've been up to in SL, but in no way does come NEAR to calling upon my emotions and efforts in the the ways my REAL artwork does.
These statements & observations might piss you off, but I don't really care. You don't have to agree with me; it's simply my opinion.As far as awesomely bad examples — you can’t throw a rock in Second Life and not hit half-ass SL photography. How I wish I could throw it all into a fucking blender and just hit Purée.
Tag search in Flickr for Second Life (plenty of lacquered up tits & ass - *yawn*):
http://flickr.com/search/?s=int&ss=2&ct=6&w=all&q=%22second+Life%22&m=tags
