[nph5667]

What bothers me is the speed with which this process - "accused -> convinced -> executed" happens. We are not discussing things anymore. Today, you could tweet any accusations, and, no matter how ridiculous they look at first, it will lead to a race of who is taking them most seriously. Something definitely is broken. Look at what happened to the "okay". 4chan forced that meme 5 years ago in what they thought is a mischievous parody of ridiculousness of the cancel culture, and recently I watched CNL where the audience gasped in disbelief when one of the sketches included "o"-word. 5 years only, and most common (almost used "o"-word, sorry) sign became a synonym of hatred and racism. And now, Dr. Seuss. What's next, someone will tweet the act of breathing is racist? Do you really think it's impossible?

[notJim]

That's not what happened. This decision has actually been in the works for a while and involved a lot of discussion.

> The decision to cease publication and sales of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company, which was founded by Seuss’ family, told AP

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-dr-...

eBay has an existing policy that removes racist materials. They're just applying it based on the Seuss info.

> 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

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-ite...

[ipsum2]

As someone mentioned above, Mein Kampf is still allowed: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...

[gnopgnip]

No, Mein Kampf is not allowed. Critically annotated versions are allowed. There is a significant difference here

[enriquto]

This is ridiculous. Historians should be allowed to freely read original, non-critically annotated, historical documents. Otherwise they cannot do their job.

[UncleMeat]

Do you think that historians are buying primary source material on ebay?

Given how frequently people reference historians and history in these discussions, I'm surprised that nobody ever seems to ask them their opinions.

[enriquto]

There's no special "historian card" that you need to show to access sources. Everybody has the right to study history on their own, and I guess the world would be a much better place if many of us did.

[franga2000]

N=1, but yes, surprisingly often. The one I know buys a lot of old books from people online to keep in their home library and has on occasion actually found some very rare items that people selling them simply don't know the rarity of. I've heard of at least one such find end up on display in a museum (incidentally, also a children's book, but probably not Seuss). And it's not just historians who have a use for unaltered source material.

While I don't mind cleaning up/modernizing certain things and not printing the originals anymore, not allowing the existing originals to be sold even by independent third-party sellers is just horrible.

[sp332]

I assume they do because eBay pushed so many competitors out of the market.

[timcederman]

And they're welcome to read those at the library or other sources - eBay, as a company, is under no obligation to facilitate dissemination of historical documents.

[yerwhat01010]

‘Skynet Is A Private Company, They Can Do What They Want,’ Says Man Getting Curb-Stomped By Terminator

https://babylonbee.com/news/skynet-is-a-private-company-they...

[enriquto]

I thought that ebay was just a website where people could sell their historical documents to each other. Ebay does not "disseminate" the things that people send to each other. Heck, it doesn't even deal with the delivery! It just processes the payments. Why are they willing to engage in editorializing stuff that they don't even see? It makes no sense.

[RobertKerans]

They are, nobody stops them doing that.

[madeofpalk]

Right so this story is actually about yet another platform poorly enforcing its own moderation policy.

[SpicyLemonZest]

But there's a point where poor, one-sided enforcement of a facially neutral moderation policy becomes in practice a biased policy.

[ojnabieoot]

This is misleading and approaching a lie. eBay only allows critically-annotated copies of Mein Kampf which are designed for scholars. I am sure that a copy of “If I Ran The Zoo” with a sociologist critically annotating the abhorrent racism would be permitted on eBay.

From one of the listed items:

> This item has been listed previously. eBay removed it with this reminder of the guidelines:

> "You listed the book Mein Kampf, but it is not a critically annotated edition. eBay only allows critically annotated versions of Mein Kampf to be listed on the site. While we appreciate that you chose to utilize our site, we must ask that you please not relist in this case."

> This is their policy and this edition is compliant with that policy.

[brandonmenc]

> eBay only allows critically-annotated copies of Mein Kampf which are designed for scholars. I am sure that a copy of “If I Ran The Zoo” with a sociologist critically annotating the abhorrent racism would be permitted on eBay.

This seems worse than an outright ban on all copies.

[ipsum2]

> eBay only allows critically-annotated copies of Mein Kampf which are designed for scholars

That's a good point. I didn't realize they were annotated by modern scholars.

[UncleMeat]

The Mein Kampf lie is already halfway around the world. A tremendous amount of misinformation is already out there regarding this story.

[stass]

Communist Manifesto and Lenin's books are allowed without any comments though. There are books by actual terrorists too, like Bill Ayers. Books advocating for segregation. One can go on.

This fine example is ok too: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Protocols-of-the-Learned-Elders-of-...

But Mulberry street is the problem.

[o_v_o]

Communist Manifesto doesn't really contain hateful content (despite Marx's racism & misogyny)

[stass]

And yet it was used as inspiration to murder 20M+ people by explicitly dehumanizing whole classes of people.

[readflaggedcomm]

It's a [thinly-veiled antisemitic conspiracy theory](https://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/features-on-je...), which is more obvious when viewing his oeuvre.

Edit: This comment doesn't deserve response, it deserves to be silenced.

[ojnabieoot]

Ok if you think eBay should ban more books then go tell them that!

Incidentally this isn’t true:

> Books advocating for segregation.

Or, rather, if such books are available it is against eBay’s policy and they should be reported. eBay has a specific policy against items that glorify racism or endorse racist stereotypes: https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-ite...

It does not have a policy against everything morally icky, but it’s quite clear about racism. Mulberry Street and If I Ran The Zoo are both racist and against eBay’s policy.

[stass]

The issue is that they are not just removing racist or hateful content according to some kind of standard. They are going after hot topics of the day, whatever it happens to be.

Even worse, hateful and racist content that is ideologically aligned is explicitly allowed. One would be hard-pressed to find anything more blatantly racist than White fragility or works of Dr Kendi, and yet you would not see eBay banning them, up until they fall out of favor.

[Igelau]

This is also a terrible idea, because there can be no scholarly analysis if scholars can't get it because everyone has jammed it down the memory hole.

(Edit: I'd really like to see some thought out defense on how censorship doesn't injure scholarship. Downvotes are just limp concessions.)

[RobertKerans]

Nobody's arguing that, so I'm not sure why anyone would need to defend a position they don't have. "I can't buy an uncommented copy of Mein Kampf from eBay" isn't the same thing as "I'm not allowed to read an uncommented copy of Mein Kampf", the latter isn't true.

[dkdbejwi383]

I doubt there are many people buying Mein Kampf as a bedtime story for their children though

[elindbe3]

Charles Manson In His Own Words is a-OK though!

[kfgx10]

So, the complete works of Shakespeare are banned because they contain "The merchant of Venice"?

[yerwhat01010]

There is absolute no chance that these radicals will not come for Shakespeare eventually. Their aim is to destroy the Western canon so they can replace it with their own propaganda: Shakespeare is too high-value a target for them to ignore.

[PontifexMinimus]

Not yet, give them time!

[replwoacause]

>We are not discussing things anymore.

Sure we are. There has been discussion. Just because you weren't involved in it, which is natural since I doubt you work for Dr. Seuss Enterprises, doesn't mean it didn't take place. The onus is on them to protect Dr. Seuss' legacy and it is important to change with the times.

This is not the first time something like this has happened and it won't be the last. There are plenty of examples to be found online of popular family cartoons which depicted racial stereotypes.

Go check out the Anti-black imagery in the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia and see if you think, by following the same logic you displayed in your comment, this stuff should still be allowed while keeping in mind it was mainstream acceptable during its time.

https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/cartoons/

[stolenmerch]

We're not talking about Dr. Seuss Enterprises though. We're talking about eBay (and soon booksellers and libraries) banning books. Also a few schools outright disavowing Dr. Seuss all together. eBay is currently selling hundreds of other items with more shocking imagery than this, so there is also some weird signaling going on here. Oh I get it, this time around the book bans are probably justified. But you don't need to be an alarmist or conspiracy theorist to want to be just a little more cautious with this kind of stuff. You can also support removing racist images and still worry about setting a dangerous precedent.

[readflaggedcomm]

The accusation is proof of discussion, therefore any conclusions are correct? Is that what you're saying?

[edaemon]

Which accusation are you referring to?

[readflaggedcomm]

Consensus on HN questions commenters' accusation that accusations have been made. I have been corrected. Marketplaces follow creators' wishes to destroy secondary sales of materials deemed hateful. Society allows this via centuries of discussion.

Accusation is a term of conflict. Terms of service changes are decisive outcomes of compassion.

[nerdponx]

If you can sell Nazi memorabilia on Ebay, you should be able to sell a Dr. Seuss book that happens to contain an offensive stereotype on Ebay.

[ojnabieoot]

You cannot sell Nazi memorabilia on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-ite...

While there is a grey area around general German WW2 artifacts, including those associated with the Nazi government, eBay explicitly disallows Nazi propaganda. It has a blanket ban on any item with a swastika that was made after 1933.

While some are going around to “point out” Mein Kampf can be bought on eBay, eBay only allows critically-annotated copies designed for scholars.

[sheepdestroyer]

In fact, in many countries it's illegal to sell Nazi memorabilia. Good if you ask me.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> Good if you ask me.

Why, exactly? I wouldn't buy any such a thing, but I know several institutions that have good reasons to.

People in general have some obsession with the Nazi and the last war. As if WWI never happened, and great wars before it. Because of this obsession, many people seem to think that the cause of a future war would be a kind of Nazism, completely disregarding the fact that it wasn't the cause of WWI and other earlier wars. Paradoxically, they also seem to forget what were the actual reasons of the rise of Nazism in post-WWI Germany (huge WWI retributions, enormous inflation and omnipresent poverty - basically people were very unhappy, and this very unhappiness was abused by Hitler; the ideology came afterwards).

[sheepdestroyer]

-> Why? To prevent glorification of the ideology.

But I was factually wrong ; It is not illegal to sell them, at least in the countries I had in mind (France & Germany).

However in France it is forbidden to exhibit them. So in order to be sold they must only be described but not shown.

Yahoo & eBay do ban the sell of such items, notably since being sued for that.

[o_v_o]

It's 6 of Dr. Seuss's books, and ones that most people haven't heard of. If you actually look at the content of the books, they are clearly racist and demeaning to those they make caricatures of.

And in any case, it was not a sudden "canceling" or anything approaching that. Seuss's estate, managed by his family, made the decision after much deliberation to cease the publication of only six books due to the content. You could even see it as an anti-cancellation - Seuss's family wants to avoid him being associated with the obviously racist content of some of his work.

[nph5667]

The problem is that you call it "clearly racist". If that is so clear why it took months to decide? In reality it's not that clear and you know it. You just moved a goalpost a little to include something that yesterday nobody complained about to become "clearly racist". And tomorrow will be something else.

[ncallaway]

Do you think they spent months deciding whether the works were racist?

Or, is it possible there's an interpretation of the sentence (and a perfectly reasonable one) where they spent months deciding whether they should stop publishing a publication that they had decided was racist?

The decision matrix might have been more complicated than: "does the work contain racist content".

[DangitBobby]

I quickly read through Mulberry Street a few minutes ago, and there is a depiction of a Chinese man "eating with sticks." He is wearing sandals, a straw hat, a robe, and holding chop sticks. His facial features are not exaggerated or like a caricature in any way. To me, it's clearly a mistake.

[probably_wrong]

According to this article [1] you may have read the updated version.

> Seuss actually grew to become more aware of his harmful images later in his life, and to regret them, eventually revising the Mulberry Street text and illustration. "I had a gentleman with a pigtail. I colored him yellow and called him a 'Chinaman,'" Seuss said. "That's the way things were 50 years ago. In later editions, I refer to him as a 'Chinese man.' I have taken the color out of the gentleman and removed the pigtail and now he looks like an Irishman."

[1] https://theweek.com/articles/969777/complicated-quagmire-dr-...

[DangitBobby]

I think you are right. I saw another version later that seemed worse.

[tayo42]

You'd think people would be tired of being unnecessarily outraged by everything by now?

[tclancy]

Look at the pictures in the relevant books and ask yourself if you would want a Black child to see themselves in those images. Ask yourself if Dr Seuss would. No one is outraged, the world just moves on.

[1123581321]

If there is no outrage, then you wouldn’t mind if those books continue to be bought and read to children and stocked in libraries. A reasonable outward rhetorical demeanor is not what is in question.

[hannasanarion]

Idk, you're the one deciding to be outraged by an authors children following through on a decision they made last year to stop printing a selection of their father's work. Are you tired of it yet?

[tayo42]

Are you all misinterpreting my comment? Yes I think it's silly people are getting outraged over them deciding to stop printing the books. Seems like people can't stop being outraged about pointless issues. This is on par with Starbucks Christmas cups drama

[tired-dev]

You mean like being outraged that people are outraged?

[cambalache]

Does Seuss state own ebay?Do they have a constitutional mandate to stop selling of private copies to be sold between 2 private individuals? Are you going to order Fanta, Volkswagen,Bayern,BASF, Ford and Hugo Boss products to be delisted because they were literally associated with the Nazis?

[mackal]

Banning of the books is consistent with eBay's TOS. This is basically "eBay is enforcing it's TOS WRT Dr Seuss books" kind of story.

[hntrader]

The speed is part of the point. What better way to signal that you're part of the woke agenda than to be one of the first movers only a few days after the publisher made their announcement? It's like all the sycophants tripping over themselves to be the first to compliment their dear leader.

[retox]

For some 'fun' just search for 'is x racist'. What o-word are you referring to, ordinary? ok?

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/04/air-pollutio...

[xahrepap]

I assumed "oriental"?

[retox]

Makes perfect sense, thanks. I don't remember the last time I heard anyone say that so it didn't come to mind.

[carrolldunham]

no, the poster was still talking about "okay". they were doing a joke by calling it the o-word because the hand gesture is a hate symbol now

[almost_usual]

I never use the “okay” hand gesture, I had no idea it was controversial now.

[xahrepap]

Ooohhh. That makes sense. :) Thanks for explaining it.

[SilverRed]

Its a fairly common flavor of instant noodles.

[vmception]

Yeah I was sad about that guy at a theme park that got fired for making an OK sign in a family's photo. Its like everyone forgot about the circle game, "the game", and went straight for white supremacy racist.

I wanted to write in or call in, but it was too late.

This one is crazy, but I have my own causes and that ain't one of them! I find it peculiar and I'm aware "they are coming for the trade unionists next" but I think I can navigate this reality and stay out of the re-education camps.

[themolecularman]

> I find it peculiar and I'm aware "they are coming for the trade unionists next" but I think I can navigate this reality and stay out of the re-education camps.

How? I think they'll get to you next. As commenters above pointed out, there is a "long march" through institutions before it starts trickling down.

[vmception]

a lot of people took the transfer agreement instead of tying their identity to their birth country. don't be like the ones that were married to their country, they got vanned and banned.

There were plenty of solutions to navigate before the .... last one. I think the parallels will hold pretty well this go-around, easily navigable options.

[someonehere]

You just said it right there. It’s the speed of social media that does this.

Call me crazy, but haven’t we seen social media being manipulated (bots) to push narratives?

These accusations or problems crop up fairly quick and then the media gets on it and then whoever/whatever is destroyed.

If social media can be manipulated to swing stock markets or elections, then isn’t it possible it can swing to push narratives or keep us constantly fighting ourselves?

[moonchild]

> audience gasped in disbelief when one of the sketches included "o"-word

Sorry, what ‘o’ word? I'm seriously asking.

[christophilus]

Oprah

[cyounkins]

I'm a little confused. Are you actually referring to the word "okay"? What is CNL?

[djsbak]

He is.

“Okay” is now considered racist.

It’s super pernicious too, but effective bludgeon. Making “Okay” racist is obscure enough that most normal people (ie those not obsessed with wokeness) have never heard of it.

Consider that you’ve never heard until now that “okay” is racist and you did the okay symbol in front of a political commissar (I mean a woke person, can’t keep up) that doesn’t like you. You’re done.

[DebtDeflation]

It's particularly irksome. There was never any history of "racism" behind the okay gesture and it was a very widely used gesture for decades. It was also a very versatile one - it could mean "everything's okay" in the traditional sense, "yeah, ok, whatever" in a dismissive sense, or turned upside down became the Circle Game where if you were tricked into looking at it you had to immediately break the circle with your index finger or accept a punch to the arm. Then some neckbeards on 4Chan decided to prank people by claiming it was a "white power symbol". Unfortunately, some alt right edgelords then started actually using it as such. Now we find ourselves in the situation you just described where not everyone is aware of this history and people who grew up with it as an innocent symbol use it and find themselves on the wrong end of a Twitter mob.

[Dirlewanger]

In a way, it's absolutely hilarious. The fact that people were so outraged by this (which was a bait attempt at a meme a rational person could see a mile away) shows they're willing to be controlled by the very people they hate.

[carapace]

https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-h...

> In 2017, the “okay” hand gesture acquired a new and different significance thanks to a hoax by members of the website 4chan to falsely promote the gesture as a hate symbol, claiming that the gesture represented the letters “wp,” for “white power.” The “okay” gesture hoax was merely the latest in a series of similar 4chan hoaxes using various innocuous symbols; in each case, the hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist.

> In the case of the “okay” gesture, the hoax was so successful the symbol became a popular trolling tactic on the part of right-leaning individuals, who would often post photos to social media of themselves posing while making the “okay” gesture.

> Ironically, some white supremacists themselves soon also participated in such trolling tactics, lending an actual credence to those who labeled the trolling gesture as racist in nature. By 2019, at least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy, such as when Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant flashed the symbol during a March 2019 courtroom appearance soon after his arrest for allegedly murdering 50 people in a shooting spree at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

> The overwhelming usage of the “okay” hand gesture today is still its traditional purpose as a gesture signifying assent or approval. As a result, someone who uses the symbol cannot be assumed to be using the symbol in either a trolling or, especially, white supremacist context unless other contextual evidence exists to support the contention. Since 2017, many people have been falsely accused of being racist or white supremacist for using the “okay” gesture in its traditional and innocuous sense.

[Covzire]

>Since 2017, many people have been falsely accused of being racist or white supremacist for using the “okay” gesture in its traditional and innocuous sense.

This can only happen in a toxic mono-culture or a corrupt dictatorship. This kind of thing is coming straight out of academia and there are little to no checks and balances on the kinds of insane cultural shifts are being made. The left and far left absolutely dominate that space and they have lost touch with reality, as anyone can clearly see when 99% of their accusations are unjust and hasty and simply ridiculous to anyone who isn't part of the cult.

[varajelle]

Where I grew up, that okay gesture was used to insult someone, meaning he is an asshole. So it rated quite high on the offensive scale.

[gnicholas]

I wouldn’t normally correct a typo, but do you mean “convicted” instead of “convinced”?

[nph5667]

You are right, thank you.

[foofoo4u]

Link to support your statement. San Jose State University bans the "okay" symbol https://sjsunews.com/article/sjsu-bans-spartan-up-gesture-fo.... It was a symbol used for decades. Now, overnight, it is something that can get a student suspended.

[timcederman]

"Overnight". Swastikas and salutes become appropriated by the Nazis, and suddenly the pledge of allegiance in America became a hand over heart, instead of the Bellamy salute. Do you think that was wrong too?

[pron]

There have been no accusations, no one has been executed, and if you see which books have been pulled and why, you'll see that the matter is pretty reasonable, far from ridiculous and almost obvious. It is you who are taking things out of proportion with this War on Christmas nonsense.

[guerrilla]

> no one has been executed

I think they mean execution of a sentence/task, not of a person.

[ForHackernews]

Your language seems needlessly hyperbolic to me. A handful of fairly obscure Dr. Seuss books are going to be harder to buy. It's not like Cat in the Hat is #cancelled or anything.

This is an "execution"?

Maybe try using language proportionate to the offence here.