[john_strinlai]

>What’s really being debated is whether a particular school library, children’s section, or curriculum should include a book. That’s not the same thing as government censorship.

except for the cases where the government, not the librarian, is saying "you cannot have that book on your shelf, even if you think it is appropriate and want it".

>Nobody is being arrested for owning it, Amazon isn’t forbidden from selling it, and adults can still read it whenever they want.

when tomhow/dang "ban" someone from HN, that user doesn't get arrested if they make a new account. they can still visit the site. is it misleading for them to use the word "ban"?

[woodrowbarlow]

i agree, with a bit more nuance. it's one thing for a government agency staffed by educational professionals (like a public school district) to issue guidance (or even rules) on how libraries should be stocked -- but what's become widespread is legislative bodies bypassing those existing structures and issuing laws without input from educational professionals.

[imgabe]

Words exist in a context. "User was banned from a site" and "Book is banned" have different connotations. You have to be purposely obtuse to conflate these.

[john_strinlai]

just like how you can figure out when tom/dan say "we've banned this account" doesn't mean "banned this account from the internet", you can use similar context clues to figure out "banned book" doesn't mean "banned across the world and is now illegal".

[imgabe]

I mean, when you're like "I have to make a hidden wifi server in a light bulb to distribute these books" that does kind of imply some dystopian totalitarian state that will put you to death for reading those books or something and not the reality that they are given their own highlighted section in literally every single bookstore in existence.

[blanched]

Did you read the article? The author doesn’t say anything like that.

It’s pretty clear this was mostly a fun idea with a bit of “could be useful in this scenario” motivation, which they mention came from reading a short story.

[therealpygon]

What led you to make up that this was said? Also, you realize there are other countries in the world where books are banned…right?