cmjwallace

I’m one of the many, many GR users who are mostly anonymous but do come out of the woodwork just enough to avoid being classified as lurkers. Lately (read: post–September 20), my latent militant streak has emerged, and it’s led me to open my mouth and protest censorship. Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt nicely encapsulates the censorial process Goodreads personnel engaged in and the reactions of the site’s prominent reviewers who were the most affected.

To those who insist that what Goodreads has done isn’t censorship, I respectfully direct your attention to certain definitions in Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary:

censor
1: a person who supervises conduct and morals: as a: an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter
b: an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered sensitive and harmful
2: one of two magistrates of early Rome acting as census takers, assessors, and inspectors of morals and conduct
3: a hypothetical psychic agency that represses unacceptable notions before they reach consciousness

censorship
1a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors; especially: censorial control exercised repressively
2: the office, power, or term of a Roman censor
3: the exclusion from consciousness by the psychic censor

I particularly like point 3 of each definition because both dovetail so well with GR’s TOS.