******** and The Eye Is Mightier Than The Chip

2 Words Forward


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It's time for another look at censorship in light of recent developments. If you don't follow Tech Dirt or Stephen Fry on twitter then you may have missed this article. In a nutshell, the article tells of Paypal's demands that Smashwords (a publisher) remove any works or pieces within works which contain "bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and under-age erotica". Smashwords was at pains to point out that they had no choice but to comply as their business is run through Paypal. They also advised that this isn't Paypal's fault but that the online payment website was under pressure from credit card companies to comply. From the outset I'd like to make it clear that it doesn't matter whether I find such themes as I listed above to be distasteful or wrong; that's never a part of the argument despite what pro-censorship advocates would have us believe. The point is that whether I wish to access this material or not it should be available. Sure, you can post warnings on things so that people who are sensitive to these things are aware that they are contained within but preventing people from accessing writings is not the answer. When credit card companies dictate what we can buy with money that they allow us to access then we are losing our freedom. There are a lot of smart people out there so I'm hoping someone comes up with an alternative so we can avoid these situations in the future.

1 Word Back

The Eye Is Mightier Than The Chip

 
The proliferation of editing software had me concerned for all of about two minutes. Yes, it's cool that you've programmed something to recognise a split-infinitive or a misspelled word. You know what? I can do that too. On top of that I can recognise words which are spelt correctly but used in the wrong place. I can identify clunky sentences which are grammatically correct. I can review the language used in the context of the target audience and I can identify idioms which will work with select audiences. In short, I'm more than a chip - I'm a wordie who knows what word should go where, when and why. Do that, Mr. Chip!