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A comment on "None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Much of FL's Book Ban Bill. Parent comment

Re:"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Muc... by morkalork on Thursday August 14, 2025 @12:10PM (#44902185)
I don't buy the whole "it's not illegal, just buy it from a bookstore yourself if it's banned from the library" argument after what happened with Steam and payment processors. What's next? "Just buy these books from a physical bookstore (not online) that is cash only because payment processors have booted the store off their platforms. Also, only old/used editions are available because publishers are afraid to print new runs. But it's not illegal so stop crying"
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Re:"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Muc... by zeroonetwothree on Thursday August 14, 2025 @12:17PM (#44902280)
I don’t think it’s fair to equate private action with state action. The latter is much more dangerous to freedom
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Re:"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Muc... by AlexandrB on Thursday August 14, 2025 @12:38PM (#44902549)
The latter often leverages the former to work around having to legislate things that are unpopular or unconstitutional. A great example is government agencies buying data from data brokers or the Twitter files where the government leaned on Twitter to downrank "wrong" ideas. With the proliferation of powerful near-monopolies - especially in tech - "the market" has little way to work around these kinds of problems, especially in the short term.

I guess my point is that both are dangerous to freedom, and ideally the government would do something to curtail corporate censorship instead of encouraging it. That's the whole idea of a "common carrier"[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier

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Re:"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Muc... by morkalork on Thursday August 14, 2025 @12:31PM (#44902466)
I am not equating the two, I am pointing out the flaw in the logic of viewing each in isolation and rationalizing. Excusing state-level book bans in libraries with "you can just buy it yourself with your money instead" clearly ignores what has been happening in the private sector.
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Re:"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Muc... by TimorousBestie on Thursday August 14, 2025 @01:12PM (#44903009)
“X is worse than Y” is not on its own an argument against “not Y.”
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Re:"None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Muc... by Chris2048 on Friday August 15, 2025 @06:36AM (#44910679)
Gov inaction is just as important, especially when it comes to regulating monopolies. Net Neutrality is a similar issue.
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