[Fezzik]

Note one massive difference: nobody was trying to make a law that Dahl’s books be sanitized or running around to libraries and getting his books banned. That was a publisher taking unilateral action changing works they own (for better or worse). I see a massive difference between the two things.

[FateOfNations]

It was even done in consultation with the Dahl estate/family, although they choose to ignore Roald Dahl's professed opinions about editing his works.

[jeffwask]

Additionally, a lot of the language was very out of date with racists and discriminatory undertones so parents had stopped buying the books. It was driven by the market because if they didn't adjust the content to adhere to what parents expect in children's literature today the stories and moral lessons would be lost to the dustbin of history and merely interesting historical artifacts.

I would regularly see stories on Reddit where someone was gifted one of the more borderline Dahl novels and they binned it rather than giving it their child. I'm sure their internal metrics were painting a similar picture.

That's bad for business. It wasn't change for social justice. It was change or watch your IP die and everyone involved still wanted the money.

[belorn]

The problem with censorship is in general never about any specific application of it, but rather the principle. When censorship becomes culturally acceptable, self censorship and political polarization follows as a natural consequence.

The massive difference between government censorship and private cooperation censorship is unlikely to effect how people feel and react to it.