Re: Apple protects us... not

> Elizabeth Burton wrote:
>
>> Here's a clue, folks. Vendors have now and will always have the right
>> to decide what is appropriate for their "shelves," virtual or
>> otherwise.

OK.

>> That's not censorship. Censorship happens when a GOVERNMENT
>> establishes criteria regarding what constitutes acceptable literature
>> and provides legal consequences for those who violate those criteria.

No, that's simply not true. Words really do have meanings and the  
word "censorship," by itself, does not mean "government censorship."  
As it happens I didn't use the word "censorship," but it is correct  
in this context and I intend to use it now.

American Heritage Dictionary

"Censor, NOUN: 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or  
other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally,  
politically, or otherwise objectionable. 2. An official, as in the  
armed forces, who examines personal mail and official dispatches to  
remove information considered secret or a risk to security. 3. One  
that condemns or censures. 4. One of two officials in ancient Rome  
responsible for taking the public census and supervising public  
behavior and morals. 5. Psychology The agent in the unconscious that  
is responsible for censorship.

TRANSITIVE VERB: To censor or expurgate."

A correct statement is that the First Amendment protects us from  
government censorship, not from censorship in general.

What Apple is doing most certainly is censorship, just as much the  
activities of Boston's Watch and Ward society, or the Index Librorum  
Prohibitorum, or Anthony Comstock's New York Society for the  
Suppression of Vice, or the NBC Department of Standards and  
Practices. Apple is, of course, perfectly within their legal rights  
to exercise censorship. But please, let's call it what it is.

And I am perfectly within my legal rights to point out that it is  
stupid, idiotic censorship that fails to provide any protection  
whatsoever to children.

As Holden Caulfield observed in J. D. Salinger's book "If you had a  
million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even _half_ the 'F***  
you' signs in the world. It's impossible." (Yes, I just expurgated my  
own remark).

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