DTRPG Says 'Don't criticize us or we'll ban you'

[Jer]

The best one can hope for is that the whoever is implementing the system -- whatever it is -- is doing so in good faith.

You can hope for that but I'll reiterate - the folks who are having to deal with this system (i.e. publishers) have to talk to DriveThru and to each other and to the rest of us when they are getting their titles pulled off for review and it turns out to be a malicious actor doing it. Whether I trust OBS to be acting in good faith or not if the system is actually broken it won't get fixed if nobody talks about it. And if malicious reporting is a problem on the site then I'd want to do whatever I can as a customer to put pressure where it needs to be put to fix it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If they raised that number and said what it was it would just lead to abusers rounding up enough friends or creating enough accounts to reach the threshold that they've published. Give me a number and you've just created a metric to hit - and with it being online it doesn't make it harder, it just makes it a bit more time consuming. (I also don't actually believe that a single report does what they say - I suspect all of that is CYA language for legal and PR purposes, but even if it is the difference between 1 report and 10 reports on the anonymous internet is meaningless).

It would at least be harder so one person couldn't do it on a whim. I don't know what the magic number is. Maybe its 20 or 30 reports. Who knows. But if it at least requires coordination for people to abuse, that is better than requiring no coordination at all to abuse (and I still think some measure to prevent coordinated abuse would be handy: like taking away report abilities from accounts that report things that consistently pass review.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But you could never win a case that Amazon has to carry it. Not a legal case, nor a discussion on moral philosophy.

Not legal, but I do think you could make a moral argument for why amazon should carry something that it doesn't.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not legal, but I do think you could make a moral argument for why amazon should carry something that it doesn't.

I disagree. Unless amazon becomes literally the only source of books, they have no such obligation at all, ever.

I'm so anti-corporation I don't believe that they should have any protections under the law, but I still don't see any argument that a business is morally obligated to amplify someone's voice.

Also, inventing such obligations due to a platform's size is the wrong direction. Break up the platform or otherwise work toward breaking it's effective monopoly. There is no, "if monopoly, then xyz applies", there is only "no monopolies".

 

[Jer]

like taking away report abilities from accounts that report things that consistently pass review.

This is one of those things that I would suspect happens behind the scenes but they don't advertise it. Because a malicious reporter is not just hurting the publishers it's also hurting DriveThru in lost sales and also in lost time as they have to pay someone to review the books that are reported just to give an all clear, and that person is likely being taken off other projects that are far more important than dealing with a malicious reporter.

(I also suspect they give more weight to accounts that have purchased the item in question than those that haven't, and also more weight to accounts that have been buying things for a long time than for those that were created more recently. I certainly would if I were creating a system like that, but again I wouldn't advertise I was doing it that way because that just leads folks to figure out how to game what you're doing quickly and break it.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also, inventing such obligations due to a platform's size is the wrong direction. Break up the platform or otherwise work toward breaking it's effective monopoly. There is no, "if monopoly, then xyz applies", there is only "no monopolies".

I disagree but this is probably a bigger issue that gets into politics. All I will say is except platforms don't get broken up anymore. It tends not to happen, and in the case of Amazon, I think they are really on the cusp of being a major issue. Amazon arguably is a monopoly (I do think for a company the size of amazon, especially since they took over Wholefoods and are getting into our refrigerator now), they have a lot of moral responsibility in terms of what products they are willing to carry (beyond books, but including what they stock on their shelves). Because when a company gets that big, you can have special needs products that people need for say medical or dietary reasons that vanish from the supply chain if a company the size of an amazon is not actively selling them. They also are able to play games with the market because they have so much data on products sales as a seller (that when they make their own products they are able to put themselves at an unfair advantage).

 

[Ovinomancer]

The very fact that they can only effectively reach their customers via DTRPG, as opposed to other venues/companies, means that, to an extent, DTRPG has a greater obligation to not throw up additional barriers to them doing so based on their personal beliefs.

No, it doesn't. DTRPG has no duty to provide the service they provide, and thus has no duty to ensure that they do not limit it.

Again, that does not reflect the reality of the situation, which is that DTRPG has become the only vector by which the customers can be reached. Simply because they're not closing off other venues doesn't mean that those venues are viable; that they control the only portal between the publisher and the customers puts a greater burden on them to safeguard it.

Saying that DTRPG is the only vector doesn't make it true. Saying that DTRPG makes it affordable for a marginal business to operate is true, but this doesn't impose a duty on DTRPG or make them a monopoly.

Except that "more cost effective" in many instances becomes "the only cost effective way."

Yes. DTRPG is under no obligation to provide a cost effective way for your business to exist. This isn't true in any other context. It's not true here.

 

[Nikosandros]

Here there is an interesting debate about some rather general issues, but I think that it is also important to remember what happened with Venger. He published two products that were purposefully inflammatory, he hoped for this exact outcome, so that he could whine about censorship and try to put himself in the spotlight.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I disagree. Unless amazon becomes literally the only source of books, they have no such obligation at all, ever.

To me this seems a very extreme position. This is a spectrum, surely we are all going to draw the line at different places, but I think saying they are never ever obligated morally to sell something, seems short sighted to me. Obviously even if books are available elsewhere, not being on major platforms like amazon, is going to impact what books actually get made. If amazon says tomorrow, "No books covering sexual orientation or LGTQ issues" I would take issue and say they have a moral obligation to not exclude books on that basis. Because that is going to impact both peoples access to such books and whether such books even get made in the first place (and it is also just a bad reason morally for them not carrying the book). Or if they took down the bible or the Quran I would say the same thing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Here there is an interesting debate about some rather general issues, but I think that it is also important to remember what happened with Venger. He published two products that were purposefully inflammatory, he hoped for this exact outcome, so that he could whine about censorship and try to put himself in the spotlight.

But most people aren't even commenting on him, they are criticizing the outcome in terms of new policy (which affects all publishers, not just Venger Satanis).