Censorship on Literotica

[jaF0]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EXgDI8DeN_E/TTkarQWr4wI/AAAAAAAAGZQ/6vv0sKDzkps/s1600/rocky_bullwinkle.jpg

What's he taking about Rocky?

I have no idea Bullwinkle. We may need to find Mr. Peabody to explain.

 

[jaF0]

https://s.clipartkey.com/mpngs/s/323-3230216_pinky-and-the-brain-pinky-and-the-brain.png

Are you thinking what I'm thinking Brain?

Very likely Pinky. Very likely. I'm confused by this thread too.

 

[Comshaw]

I've had my first experience of outright censorship these days on LIT!

What I was trying to do was to get a review (written in German) of another LIT story (written in German) re-published (in the "Reviews & Essays" category, of course), but the re-publication was denied by the "moderator," giving the following reason:



What did I actually write? I wrote an in-depth, text-based review of the story in question, analyzing six of its major pitfalls, including logical errors, failed similes, and POV mistakes. Naturally, my review wasn't full of praise, but since when is there no difference between criticizing a text—using strictly textual evidence, mind you—and critizing a person? The two are not identical—never were and never will be!

And how on earth would the "moderator" know about the "primary intent" of something written by a complete stranger in a language the moderator doesn't even speak a single word of?!

I think that probably the author of the text I reviewed reported my review after its initial publication because he simply could not stand to see his bad writing exposed. So he simply got it banned. How is that OK? How is it OK to ban the truth—even if it is just about low-quality smut! Just since when is bad porn a protected class that cannot be criticized?

Hence, I'm really curious what your—if any—experiences have been with censorhip on LIT (without, e. g., breaking the infamous under 18 rule)! Please, come forward and let me know! Or may I be the first case of someone whose writing is being censored on LIT without breaking any rules?

Take care,
AJ

A few points (some of which have been repeated multiple times here) and my two cents worth:
Without the ability to read what you wrote I like most here will not jump in and support your assertion that it was "censorship". The reason being that most aren't going to judge on a "one side of the story" basis. How do we know you did it in the manner you claim? You are asking us to take what you say at face value without having built any credibility or ANY empirical evidence. To that I only have a three-word response: Ain't gunna happen.

I ran into a situation like this on a local neighborhood site. A person was complaining that one of the organizations in our small town had canceled her membership for opposing a grant they gave out. Come to find out it wasn't her opposition to it, it was her presentation of that opposition to the board that got her shown the door. This smells very similar.

Also, how do you know the mod can't read German? Did they tell you that? Or are you guessing as you did in the very next sentence, "I think that probably the author..." Fact and a WAG (wild-ass guess) are two distinct and separate things. The former proves a point, the latter is an empty supposition.

That said, I've been here 20 years. Granted I haven't posted much or many stories compared to others, but I also have never been banned or had a post removed. And I've posted some rather incendiary remarks at times.

Even if it had happened, I wouldn't call it a violation of my free speech rights. It would piss me off and I'd probably throw a hissy fit, but because this site is owned by private business, the owners have the right to grant or deny any privilege they wish, which extends to what is posted on THEIR website.

If I were you I'd go back, put my ego aside, reread what you wrote and try to truthfully figure out why it was removed. That doesn't mean you need to agree with their assessment, but it will give you real factual insight as to why the mods took it down.



“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War


Comshaw

 

[Bramblethorn]

Now, why is that? Does that mean that every (critical) review—be it literary, cinematic, or whatever—comes across as mean-spirited if it "targets" (quite loaded word choice again in the present context) a specific author's work? What about guys like Robert Ebert and Gene Siskel: Were they mean-spirited because they called their readers' attention to the failings of particular films by particular directors?

I'm not terribly familiar with their work, but my understanding is that Ebert and Siskel tended to punch up, with much of their harsher criticism targeted at big-name studios and blockbuster films. Also, I could be wrong here, but my understanding is that Siskel and Ebert were usually reviewing films that they'd been invited to review, because they were respected enough as reviewers that studios saw benefits in inviting their review even with the chance that it might be negative.

A more accurate parallel here might be if Jackie Chan started writing unsolicited 'review' articles trashing John Woo's work, or if George R. R. Martin were to do that to Rowling. Were that to happen, I suspect it would be viewed as petty and unprofessional, professional peers sniping at one another.

(A rather more accurate parallel would be if everybody involved was at the D-list rather than the A-list end of the industry, but there we run into problems of name recognition, so I'll leave the example as it stands.)

Again, why is it apparently OK then to have something like that happen in the forum, but not on the site proper? I am asking because CyranoJ mentioned "ethical standards" in defense of safe spaces and the like. If, hence, the site proper ought to be a safe space for authors to be spared from (literary) critique, why then is it OK for readers to post the vilest comments in the first place (which the author nonetheless needs to read before he can reasonably delete them, hence being not safe from them) and for other users to—I take your word for it—openly attack other users (including authors) in the LIT forum? How is any of that reconcilable with those "ethical standards" (which ostensibly justify the take down of my literary critique)?

I'm not sure anybody is saying it's okay to have it happen on the forums. (Although we will certainly argue about whose fault it is when it does happen).

I'm aware of more than one case where forum discussions have been shut down, or posts or entire threads edited/deleted by mods, because they were considered to be personal attacks. It doesn't always happen, and the dynamic is a bit different (for all the many reasons that the forum side is different to the story side), but it's certainly not unheard of.

Anyway, I think I'm going to follow the more sensible contributors to this discussion in bowing out now.

 

[SimonDoom]

Not exactly my words, SimonDoom. To correct the matter at hand, I think it is OK to quote myself on this occasion:

You see, I didn't argue that anything was "self-evident," as there is a meaningful difference between the concepts of "evidence" and "self-evidence" (EDIT: well, in a later post I used the phrase "virtually self-evident observation," which was probably a little overstated to make my point clear, still I qualified it with the not all-too unimportant adverb "virtually"). And I also didn't argue that writing in general had declined but specifically the "upper range," the, if you will, fraction of submissions with serious literary pretensions.

This is an exact quote of your sentence, in the second post of that thread you started two years ago:

"Finally, I didn’t made [sic] this thread to discuss whether or not there has been any such decline as I’ve made the topic of this thread—because that’s a given, a virtually self-evident observation to anyone who has been on board here long enough with his five senses still together and faculty of judgment (what the English used to prefer to call “taste”) intact, I’d submit."

Qualifying the phrase "self-evident observation" with the word "virtually" does nothing to change the overall character of this sentence.

You can, of course, have any opinion you want. But when you submit posts in the Author's Hangout with this kind of tone and attitude you are not going to get many people to take you seriously. It should be obvious why. If it's not, I can't help you. And if your main purpose simply is to toss bombs and watch the pretty explosions then it doesn't matter.

 

[KeithD]

Thank you all for your replies!

You lost me at trying to provide an unsolicited vigilante critique here. Others might be fine with that. I'm not.

 

[Auden James]

@ Bramblethorn

Thank you for your clarifications, especially concerning my question about Ebert and Siskel!

[M]y understanding is that Ebert and Siskel tended to punch up, with much of their harsher criticism targeted at big-name studios and blockbuster films. Also, I could be wrong here, but my understanding is that Siskel and Ebert were usually reviewing films that they'd been invited to review, because they were respected enough as reviewers that studios saw benefits in inviting their review even with the chance that it might be negative.

Do I understand you correctly that you wouldn't say that their negative reviews of particular films were mean-spirited? And that the reasons for that were that a) they "targeted" big budget productions, b) they (usually) were solicited to review these big budget productions, c) they were authorities a/o professional reviewers.

Hence Jackie Chan's hypothetical unsolicited "review" articles trashing John Woo's work would be mean-spirited because . . . he is no authority a/o his reviews would be unsolicited (a) seems pretty much inapplicable)? Hence George R. R. Martin hypothetically doing something similar to J. K. Rowling would be mean-spirited because . . . he is no authority a/o his reviews would be unsolicited (a) seems pretty much inapplicable)?

So all this seems to boil down to authority a/o solicitation being necessary conditions on part of the reviewer for his reviews to not be mean-spirited. (I'm not sure about the "status" of the producer of the reviewed work or the work itself since that was not really applicable in your counter examples). Although I have the intuition that you probably think of those condition also as sufficient ones. But since I cannot be sure, I'd really appreciate it if you could clarify this question too!

As far as I am concerned, however, the condition c) seems pretty similar to the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. If b) were truly necessary a/o sufficient it would have the—at least to my mind—absurd consequence that pretty much all reviews published on sites like IMDb, Goodreads, etc. would be mean-spirited (even more absurd: the glowing ones too). If a) were truly necessary a/o sufficient it would have the—at least to my mind—absurd consequence that any review of lower status works would be mean-spirited, so that there could not really be any warranted reviews of such works.

Thus I don't see how your understanding of the Ebert and Siskel analogy provides a coherent account of what makes a review mean-spirited. And I don't see how augmenting Laurel's "critizing or targeting another LIT user" with a such an incoherent account of the term ("mean-spirited") would help justify her ad hoc reasoning.

I'm not sure anybody is saying it's okay to have it happen on the forums. [. . .] I'm aware of more than one case where forum discussions have been shut down, or posts or entire threads edited/deleted by mods, because they were considered to be personal attacks.

With the "OK" I intended to point out that, apparently, there is also no (stated) equivalent (rule) to be found on the forums (or anywhere else on the site for that matter) to the ad hoc rule that Laurel came up with to take down my review.

Furthermore, if you are trying to justify that take down by referring to the, presumably, similarly moderated "personal attacks" on the forums, you are presupposing what is actually querried (well, at least by me): that in-depth text-based criticism pointing out the shortcomings of a particular story is a personal attack, which I think it is not.

 

[Auden James]

@Comshaw

Thank you for your thought-provoking input!

Without the ability to read what you wrote I like most here will not jump in and support your assertion that it was "censorship".

First of all, I didn't open this thread to rally support for my assertion that the take down of my review was censorship (although I see it as such); rather I was interested in finding out whether other writers too have had their writing rejected on the basis of ad hoc reasoning (and in this sense without breaking any [stated] rules they could have observed beforehand).

And do I understand you correctly that if, after reading my taken down review, you came to the conclusion that I was indeed "criticizing or targeting another Lit user," you wouldn't think of taking down my review as censorship? If so, why? Because it would fit Laurel's ad hoc rule? Because, technically, you cannot be censored on a private site (as you as well as quite a few other posters seem to imply)? Because what matters isn't what one says but how one says it? . . .

It's true that I don't know whether Laurel can read German or not, still I think that's a pretty reasonable guess since I've never seen or heard of her getting involved on the German forum or site or even use a single German word here or there. I mean, even if you were to suppose that she can read but not write German, why then would she never have let this known in all these years? Besides, since machine translations are readily avaible these days, we may as well presume that, in a certain sense, she indeed can "read" German, but I'd argue that would be rather shaky grounds for making any content-related decisions.

If I were you I'd go back, put my ego aside, reread what you wrote and try to truthfully figure out why it was removed. That doesn't mean you need to agree with their assessment, but it will give you real factual insight as to why the mods took it down.

Thank you for your sound advice! Perhaps it will relieve you to know that I've already done that! I also really appreciate all the replies in this thread (even the more hostile ones) because those helped me to better understand just how contentious it is to provide extensive critiques of someone else's work, even in the cultural context of the country on earth with perhaps the greatest tradition of upholding free speech in modern times.

 

[TxRad]

Auden James, here is a simple statement even you should understand. It is Laurel's site and she can take down anything she wants to at any time she wants to. We, here in the AH have no control or input so go discuss this with the person who does.

As for everyone else, follow the troll rule in these cases, Don't feed the troll.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Auden James = wanker, and that is just my considered critical analysis of his chosen and pretentious Lit name.

A well considered very Australian response which I happily endorse.

 

[MetaBob]

I sometimes wonder why anyone would want to invest energy in publicly and negatively criticizing someone else's writing at length when that writer isn't getting paid for their work.

Criticism can be helpful, or hurtful, or both at the same time. I try to keep in mind that any criticism I give could be taken as hurtful while doing what I can to help fix the worst excesses, kindly whenever possible. I praise what can be praised, and minimize what I might criticize especially when the writing is awful, which has sometimes been the case. Every writer sharing their work for FREE is taking a major personal risk, and is often young and impressionable. Must that work be needlessly ripped? I say no.

I often rate stories here. I've only ever given five-star ratings, to stories I enjoyed, with one exception to which I gave four stars since the grammar was awful even though I liked the story. Later, I regretted doing so but it was too late; I was unable to change that rating.

The one-star bomb is something I will never understand: someone is trying to sabotage the work of another, seemingly because it is politically unpalatable for them. Stupid pointless stupid a-hole stupid, but that's how things are.

Take it offline if you hate it, and ... be kind. Please.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You seem to have a singular inability to understand a basic fact. Free speech is something guaranteed to you by the constitution and the gov of your country. Think Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.

Free speech is NOT guaranteed to you by private businesses. They can do what they want.

This is a private business. Therefore your whining about free speech is meaningless.

I'm out too.

Yep, just look at Facebook and Twitter, they block any content "they" don't happen to like. Some bullshit about it be against community standards. I'm part of that community and they never asked me about these standards they have. WTF?

 

[XerXesXu]

I often rate stories here. I've only ever given five-star ratings, to stories I enjoyed, with one exception to which I gave four stars since the grammar was awful even though I liked the story. Later, I regretted doing so but it was too late; I was unable to change that rating.
.

I struggle with giving anything other than 5 rating as well. If a story stands on 4.6, 4 stars would be dragging a rating down, which I wouldn't necessarily like to do. 5 might be slightly over the top. If I've read a story through to the end, then it will be in the 4 to 5 range, I may think that 4.6 is a very fair rating, but the only way to maintain that rating is not to vote.

The corollary is, I could only give 1,2 and 3 star ratings to stories I'd not read in full. I know many readers feel disinhibited about giving 1,2 and 3 ratings, but I wonder whether authors feely equally disinhibited, particularly about stories they've only partially read.

 

[HordHolm]

The corollary is, I could only give 1,2 and 3 star ratings to stories I'd not read in full. I know many readers feel disinhibited about giving 1,2 and 3 ratings, but I wonder whether authors feely equally disinhibited, particularly about stories they've only partially read.

I'm the same - but in the end if I don't read to the end I don't give a rating. I might not have read to the end because of a number of issues that are nothing to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of the story in question. To be honest, I think I would only mark very low if something offended me. And that would be unlikely because I wouldn't look to begin a story that I guessed was going somewhere I didn't want to go.

As regards bad grammar, I wouldn't mark down for that (though I have stopped reading stories because of it) as I always think that it might be a story written, painfully, by someone whose literacy isn't that wonderful. And I think that if I discourage them by voting their story down, perhaps they won't try another, and thus won't improve their language skills.

 

[8letters]

I sometimes wonder why anyone would want to invest energy in publicly and negatively criticizing someone else's writing at length when that writer isn't getting paid for their work.

I think there's a huge value in people providing criticism for stories/movies that cost money to read/see. Should I spend my limited discretionary money on going to see "Eternals" when it is released? Or buying "Fifty Shades Freed" when it is released? A good review can save me a lot of money or steer me to a great time.

But stories that are free to read? And that already have a community rating? I don't need someone to provide me a review of them.

Back to your point - as Literotica authors didn't get paid, they are going to write the stories that excite them enough to spend the time writing them. What excites an author sufficiently to write a story I may not find erotic. And in turn, lots of people don't find my stories erotic. I think it's very, very hard to give criticism to an author that is actually useful to that author, particularly if it's unsolicited. Unsolicited advice is much more likely to be demotivating than helpful.