The PayPal "censorship" on Erotica, and why financial institutions may win this war.
UPDATE: On 13th March, PayPal
revised their terms and conditions. You can see the
revisions here: https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2012/03/update-paypal’s-acceptable-use-policy/
(For those of you who have no idea what this blog post is about having read the title, please read this first: http://www.smashwords.com/press/release/27)
Nothing says, 'this is okay' like silence.
I've taken a while to write my own blog post on this. I'll be honest: I don't always find confrontation or speaking out easy; it's often a learning curve for me. I'm a highly emotional person, and I have the tendency to rage inside when something like this happens, to the point where I'm visibly shaking with anger ... not the best time for me to be writing a blog post, so I waited. I'm also feeling tired over it, as many authors are, and ultimately, even though this blog post is for everyone, I want to dedicate it to those authors who have suffered the most so far because of this. Some have suffered from the loss of thousands of dollars, but moreso, they have lost the right to publish legal content from the platforms that allow them the best audience. And because so many people seem to think this is 'okay', they're protests have been drowned out by silence.
For the rest of you, this does not only affect certain sub-genres of erotica, it affects everyone with an imagination and the ability - the right - to express it within the realms of fiction and fantasy.
Many are saying that, technically, nothing is being censored, and that we are all still free to write what we want. Likewise, if someone decides not to serve a [harmless] person in their own shop (because of whatever their own agenda / policies may be), that's all right, because that person can go somewhere else. But if one shop owner decides to do it, many people begin to do it because they can, regardless of whether they should... Eventually, there is no place left for that person to go, and look what's happened: the suppression of someone / something that has a right to exist, and it's happened before our eyes under the guise of 'but they were always still free to carry on as they were'.
If you're not a writer and you think it doesn't concern you, know that only the first domino has been knocked over - watch what happens over the next few months and years.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist (another label that has people either scoffing or feeling fear - not sure why if they're all just theories), there is another agenda here. I've read about ten theories. Mine is this: I wonder if the financial institutions are looking to, over the next few years, get rid of all cheques (already mostly happened) and all physical monies (no more notes and coins), so that all we have left is electronic money. And what happens then? They can always see what we're buying, and they can control it by ensuring that only what they're happy with is available for purchase. Once they control what we're buying, they can control us in other ways. It's a way to mould us. The choice will be taken from us without us even realising it. The abuse of power is so subtle, it's scary.
It begins with a fringe topic that no one wants to dirty their hands with. Oh, they're such fear-inducing words amongst the masses, aren't they? RAPE, INCEST, BESTIALITY. And they're so successfully distracting us from what the real issue is...
Let me throw another word in there for you: PORN. Oh yes, I have seen over the past week, erotica and romance authors attacking other erotica authors: "I write high class erotica; what you write is PORN (the insinuation, clearly, that it should be clamped down on)." Fighting amongst the troops. Wonderful. It's the best way to break up an army. Are we all proud of ourselves?
I won't apologise for referring to this as a war. It is. Only war, nowadays, is not necessarily in your face, with guns and bullets. In the 21st Century, war begins with a binary code, and it will end when the code is broken.
I'm not one for finger-pointing / blaming. At the end of the day, many people / companies / institutions play a part in allowing something like this to happen - elements of it, unavoidable, unless we want to go live on a mountain somewhere, completely disconnected from the world, and only make our work available for the trees and animals to read - and finger-pointing only riles us all up. ACTION, no matter how small, is better than finger-pointing - and I am one for making everyone aware of what's going on. I'm sure my friends, most of whom don't read or write erotica - at least, I'm fairly certain they don't - are already sick of hearing me mention "the PayPal Erotica thing" many times a day. Many don't see that it goes far beyond that; that erotica is the scapegoat for a much larger plan.
I've heard some authors say that they're feeling tired, and too weary to keep on fighting. I understand this; I feel bone-tired today from it all. It doesn't help that many of us are constantly struggling with what is the correct thing for us to do. If you're a UK author, PayPal is often the only way you can get paid for your work, and Smashwords is the only way you can get into B&N. I'm also in the process of publishing other people's work into these distribution channels, and we have a contract I can't just break and nor do I want to. I also need to buy my daughter another pair of shoes, and pay for her school fees.
But I will do what I can in stages. I removed PayPal from my own website and will look for another shopping cart, or find another way... Maybe it won't involve credit cards at all. Maybe I'll invent a new system based on old-fashioned trade that can be used just on my site. I think the baby steps count. We can't change everything overnight, and we shouldn't push ourselves to so that we're too tired to fight. Practiced soldiers know how to pace themselves and when to strike.
If we keep doing what we're doing, and we keep talking about what's happening, even if it's in small doses if that's all we can manage at a time, we'll get somewhere. People will eventually hear. People will become aware. For those of you feeling the frustration (and now I'm talking to authors that have been affected, directly or indirectly), it's okay that some people take longer than others to get to that point.
But, for God's sake, keep talking. keep singing or making music, keep drawing or painting, and keep writing ... storytelling in all these forms is how we pass truth and knowledge down. Words, whether spoken, written, sung or painted, are vital to expression, healing, and freedom itself. To the exhausted authors who have voiced the urge to hang up their [sword] pen: do not give up, because you are not alone.
Silence will end us all.
Silence is how we will lose this war.
And too many people are being silent.
In Mark Coker's recent press release, he has voiced a call to action. Here is the whole press release - http://www.smashwords.com/press/release/28 and here is a snippet from it:
EDIT: I wanted to add a petition link here, for those that oppose this http://www.thepetitionsite.com/7/stop-internet-censorship/
I also want to add this: a link to a post that Neil Gaiman wrote back in 2008, which has absolutely nothing to do with this directly, but is so completely relevant that it's startling, "Why Defend Freedom Of Icky Speech" http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html
---------------
(For those of you who have no idea what this blog post is about having read the title, please read this first: http://www.smashwords.com/press/release/27)
Nothing says, 'this is okay' like silence.
I've taken a while to write my own blog post on this. I'll be honest: I don't always find confrontation or speaking out easy; it's often a learning curve for me. I'm a highly emotional person, and I have the tendency to rage inside when something like this happens, to the point where I'm visibly shaking with anger ... not the best time for me to be writing a blog post, so I waited. I'm also feeling tired over it, as many authors are, and ultimately, even though this blog post is for everyone, I want to dedicate it to those authors who have suffered the most so far because of this. Some have suffered from the loss of thousands of dollars, but moreso, they have lost the right to publish legal content from the platforms that allow them the best audience. And because so many people seem to think this is 'okay', they're protests have been drowned out by silence.
For the rest of you, this does not only affect certain sub-genres of erotica, it affects everyone with an imagination and the ability - the right - to express it within the realms of fiction and fantasy.
Many are saying that, technically, nothing is being censored, and that we are all still free to write what we want. Likewise, if someone decides not to serve a [harmless] person in their own shop (because of whatever their own agenda / policies may be), that's all right, because that person can go somewhere else. But if one shop owner decides to do it, many people begin to do it because they can, regardless of whether they should... Eventually, there is no place left for that person to go, and look what's happened: the suppression of someone / something that has a right to exist, and it's happened before our eyes under the guise of 'but they were always still free to carry on as they were'.
If you're not a writer and you think it doesn't concern you, know that only the first domino has been knocked over - watch what happens over the next few months and years.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist (another label that has people either scoffing or feeling fear - not sure why if they're all just theories), there is another agenda here. I've read about ten theories. Mine is this: I wonder if the financial institutions are looking to, over the next few years, get rid of all cheques (already mostly happened) and all physical monies (no more notes and coins), so that all we have left is electronic money. And what happens then? They can always see what we're buying, and they can control it by ensuring that only what they're happy with is available for purchase. Once they control what we're buying, they can control us in other ways. It's a way to mould us. The choice will be taken from us without us even realising it. The abuse of power is so subtle, it's scary.
It begins with a fringe topic that no one wants to dirty their hands with. Oh, they're such fear-inducing words amongst the masses, aren't they? RAPE, INCEST, BESTIALITY. And they're so successfully distracting us from what the real issue is...
Let me throw another word in there for you: PORN. Oh yes, I have seen over the past week, erotica and romance authors attacking other erotica authors: "I write high class erotica; what you write is PORN (the insinuation, clearly, that it should be clamped down on)." Fighting amongst the troops. Wonderful. It's the best way to break up an army. Are we all proud of ourselves?
I won't apologise for referring to this as a war. It is. Only war, nowadays, is not necessarily in your face, with guns and bullets. In the 21st Century, war begins with a binary code, and it will end when the code is broken.
I'm not one for finger-pointing / blaming. At the end of the day, many people / companies / institutions play a part in allowing something like this to happen - elements of it, unavoidable, unless we want to go live on a mountain somewhere, completely disconnected from the world, and only make our work available for the trees and animals to read - and finger-pointing only riles us all up. ACTION, no matter how small, is better than finger-pointing - and I am one for making everyone aware of what's going on. I'm sure my friends, most of whom don't read or write erotica - at least, I'm fairly certain they don't - are already sick of hearing me mention "the PayPal Erotica thing" many times a day. Many don't see that it goes far beyond that; that erotica is the scapegoat for a much larger plan.
I've heard some authors say that they're feeling tired, and too weary to keep on fighting. I understand this; I feel bone-tired today from it all. It doesn't help that many of us are constantly struggling with what is the correct thing for us to do. If you're a UK author, PayPal is often the only way you can get paid for your work, and Smashwords is the only way you can get into B&N. I'm also in the process of publishing other people's work into these distribution channels, and we have a contract I can't just break and nor do I want to. I also need to buy my daughter another pair of shoes, and pay for her school fees.
But I will do what I can in stages. I removed PayPal from my own website and will look for another shopping cart, or find another way... Maybe it won't involve credit cards at all. Maybe I'll invent a new system based on old-fashioned trade that can be used just on my site. I think the baby steps count. We can't change everything overnight, and we shouldn't push ourselves to so that we're too tired to fight. Practiced soldiers know how to pace themselves and when to strike.
If we keep doing what we're doing, and we keep talking about what's happening, even if it's in small doses if that's all we can manage at a time, we'll get somewhere. People will eventually hear. People will become aware. For those of you feeling the frustration (and now I'm talking to authors that have been affected, directly or indirectly), it's okay that some people take longer than others to get to that point.
But, for God's sake, keep talking. keep singing or making music, keep drawing or painting, and keep writing ... storytelling in all these forms is how we pass truth and knowledge down. Words, whether spoken, written, sung or painted, are vital to expression, healing, and freedom itself. To the exhausted authors who have voiced the urge to hang up their [sword] pen: do not give up, because you are not alone.
Silence will end us all.
Silence is how we will lose this war.
And too many people are being silent.
In Mark Coker's recent press release, he has voiced a call to action. Here is the whole press release - http://www.smashwords.com/press/release/28 and here is a snippet from it:
What can you do to move things forward? First, direct your attention where it matters most. Contact your credit card company or congress person and tell them you want financial services companies out of the business of censoring what writers and readers are free to imagine with fiction. Blog about it. Tweet about it. Contact your favorite blogger and encourage them to raise awareness. Start petitions and tell financial institutions you want their censors out of your head. Contact the media. The media, with your urging, has the power to shine a bright light on the dangerous slippery slope of censorship by financial institutions.Please, do what you can.
If the media (both traditional and social) calls on credit card companies and banks to honestly answer these simple questions, then they'll either be compelled to acknowledge the absurdity of their policies or they'll be compelled to rewrite their policies. This troublesome tide can shift if financial institutions are forced to answer why they're prohibiting legal fiction.
EDIT: I wanted to add a petition link here, for those that oppose this http://www.thepetitionsite.com/7/stop-internet-censorship/
I also want to add this: a link to a post that Neil Gaiman wrote back in 2008, which has absolutely nothing to do with this directly, but is so completely relevant that it's startling, "Why Defend Freedom Of Icky Speech" http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html
I've shared this article on Facebook, Twitter, and sent it privately to a few friends. I've also written a blog post about the subject myself. I also feel like people are tired of hearing me talk about it, but we can't stop. (Maybe I'll back off a little to keep from sounding like a broken record. But I won't stop.)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. Thanks for helping to spread awareness of the real issue. It isn't about rape, incest, or bestiality. It's about freedom.
And for me, it's about paying the bills. While I don't write in cagetories directly affected, I can't help but wonder, where will it end? What if someone wakes up tomorrow and decides that my erotic paranormal romance is "obscene"?
Thanks so much Tracey, for commenting and for your support. No, we can't stop :)
DeleteAnd I share your concerns. If, as Mark Coker is saying, it really is the CC companies behind all of this, then it won't stop with PayPal. And authors who write these sub-genres - maybe in the long run, not even within the erotica category - will have nowhere else to go. All retailers are subject to their terms. Let's face it, I don't know anyone who pays for eBooks with anything other than a credit card. Scary stuff indeed.
Awesome post. I shared it on my FB.
ReplyDeleteM
Thanks so much, Michelle x
Delete