The Slippery Slope

[beren_writes]

Okay, I said I wasn't going to do this because Soph said it so well over here Censorship – credit card companies are burning our books, but I have to have my say as well.

If you are not aware what this is about, last week Paypal sent out emails to several of their clients (including Smashwords and AllRomance) telling them they would stop their service if they continued to sell erotic books with rape, incest, psuedo incest or bestiality in them (this includes weres in animal form). Then they gave them just days to deal with it.

This is censorship, plain and simple and its a slippery slope. What if they take a dislike to vampire fic next?

I don't tend to read these sub-genres in original fiction because a whole heap of it is crap and I don't like rape fic. However, then I thought of it in fanfic terms. Hypothetically, if those of us who read fanfic were to pay for it (we don't because that would be illegal) Paypal's actions would have just wiped out 50% of the Supernatural fandom, about 80% of the Tokio Hotel fandom, 25% of the Avengers fandom (Loki/Thor anyone?) not to mention a good percentage of the kink memes out there and that's just four examples I thought up in about ten seconds.

Paypal say they are reacting to the credit card companies. Well frankly it's about time we said no to the credit card companies; how dare they try and tell us what we're allowed to read!

Please consider signing the petition below and register you opinion.

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Stop Internet Censorship!
This is a petition to bring awareness and protest about Paypal being able to dictate to eBook sellers what forms of erotica they may and may not sell.

Comments

[moth2fic]

Signed. *sigh* It's all part and parcel of the efforts by the big corporations - media, banks, etc. to control the rest of us. They're putting up such a fierce fight because I suspect they sense their end is nigh - but there will be a lot of bitterness before we win!!