‘ Plenty of controversial items—including Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and “The Turner Diaries,” a novel popular with white-supremacist groups—were available on eBay as of Wednesday evening. When asked, the spokeswoman said these two books also fell in the “offensive material” category and would be removed. On Thursday afternoon it appeared that “The Turner Diaries” was no longer available on eBay.’
From the article at least, it appears eBay will also remove those books.
Ebay has had an "offensive material" policy since at latest 2018 -- that's the earliest that Wayback Machine has a capture of the URL that the present "offensive material" policy is at.
The 2018 one probibits "items that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views"
I am not sure to what extent or in what ways it has been enforced against what sorts of items. Perhaps it has been enforced unevenly or mostly not? I suspect that nazi memorabilia, at least, has been consistently rejected for a while.
But the policy is not new.
The today one at that URL gets into a lot more specific details than the 2018 one, including prohibiting "Items with racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise demeaning portrayals, for example through caricatures or other exaggerated features, including figurines, cartoons, housewares, historical advertisements, and golliwogs"
It looks like those details were there as early as Nov 2020, not sure how long before that. But that predates the current Seuss controversy.
Is Mein Kampf sold as a children's book? I meant it in the context of children's books. Would you think "Marquis de Sade" would be a good book to sell as a children's book?
I recently read "They Thought They Were Free (Germans 1930-1945)" where he mentions that after the war the Germans were amazed to hear that you could still buy Mein Kampf in the United States throughout the entirety of World War II. The US used to be a bastion of free speech and classical liberal values. Oh how things have changed.
While many other bans, especially on social media, seem to me to be quite nuanced, banning the re-sale of an old book is insane. Who does it hurt of this book is still sold? There are good reasons not to publish it for children anymore. There are good reasons not to stock it in a book shop. There are good reasons not to lend it to children in a library. But why would you prevent two people from selling it between themselves at a (digital) marketplace?
The re-sale of the book is NOT banned. You're free (at least in some cities) to sell that awful book on a filthy blanket on the sidewalk if you want. You're free to put an ad in the newspaper. Just because a single company doesn't want to be associated with something that is hurtful does not mean you are prevented from trading in whatever book you desire.
It IS banned on eBay. Who does this protect? Who is hurt if A sells a Seuss book with hurtful stereotype pictures to B on eBay?
This is not like Facebook amplifying someone's vile posts and showing them to hundreds or thousands of people. It's just a 1:1 transaction for a physical object that contains racist depictions.
Ebay should be forced to allow buyers and sellers to trade anything that is not illegal. They should not be forced to promote items they do not want to promote, but they should not have the final say on whether I can sell or buy an item on their platform.
Why should they not have the final say? It’s their platform. By the way, in eBay’s seller terms & condx, I guarantee there’s a clause where sellers give up any recourse if eBay decides for any reason to delist your items.
Of course, that wouldn’t work. Any platform that is “X, but with slightly relaxed rules” becomes a magnet for people who really really care about those particular rules not being enforced.
If the enforcement effort is nontrivial (e.g., moderating a global social media platform), this dynamic is a moat for the company doing the enforcement. Every time they introduce a new rule that the majority of their users don’t care much about, they strengthen the moat. So over time they’ll find an equilibrium with the strictest rules they can get away with.
I don’t mean this happens intentionally, but rather in an evolutionary, survival of the fittest sort of way.
I am not saying it is. I wasn't aware that ebay still sold Mein Kampf, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. I read Mein Kampf it's really not that special. But I meant selling Mein Kampf as children's books. And I don't think Dr. seuss is hitler. On the contrary, I think they are miles apart.
I am just tired of all the pro-capitalist, pro-freedom people who are telling some company that they aren't allowed not to sell a book. Just start your own platform then and sell the things that ebay doesn't. Nobody will care. I certainly won't. That being said, I think it is good that old books, traditions and stories are held against the light of racism and discrimination.
> I wasn't aware that ebay still sold Mein Kampf, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing.
Mein Kampf is listed as a Best Seller on Amazon.
Edit: I'm not sure why I was downvoted. What I wrote is literally true. There is a Best Seller badge next to the first version that is listed, when searching for Mein Kampf.
This. And also: if they don't exist. Open a new one! There is no law against it. And we would stand shoulders to shoulder if and when the government would ever propose such a law. But until that time, stop whining.
Yes, I am implying that a typical bookstore shouldn't have Mein Kampf for sale. And as a matter of fact, I think a typical bookstore doesn't have it. Are you implying that they should have it?
I am suggesting that Dr. Seuss is comparable to hitler in this context: they shouldn't be in the children's section. Just like I think Marquis de Sade shouldn't be in the children's section.Do you think that bookstores should be forced to sell books that contain racist charicatures?
There is a difference in a bookstore choosing not to offer select children's books because their content violates the owners sensibilities, and a mall preventing a bookstore to sell a children's book because the mall owner finds the book offensive.
Both are quite normal. What if the bookstore owner decided to only sell porn? The mall van decide to force the bookstore to stop that. That's just how it works. The bookstore is a client of the mall. So the mall decides.
> Yes, I am implying that a typical bookstore shouldn't have Mein Kampf for sale. And as a matter of fact, I think a typical bookstore doesn't have it.
