Paypal waves its corporate banhammer to engage in censorship

[jeriendhal]

So Paypal contacted Smashwords and let them know that their contract with Paypal would be suspended if they didn't delete all of the erotic works being published on their site related to "bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and underage erotica". Or anything close to it, such "barely legal" stories or non-consensual BDSM.

Unfortunately that means my own Prisoners of War was up on the chopping block, since plainly it is meant to be pr0n, with a rape scene, though certainly the victim of the scene didn't find it erotic at all and the rapist isn't portrayed as anything less than a complete monster. So rather than risk getting banned from Paypal myself, I deleted it. Admittedly I'd only sold five copies in the year or so it's been available, but five copies is five copies.

Somehow I don't think Amazon is going to get penalized for selling the latest offering from V.C. Andrews' grave though.

Comments

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

:(

[siderea]

Grrrrr.

Can I share this around? Is there any official announcement or any independent reportage I can link to?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

My link is to Smashwords' official announcement. I'm not sure where Paypal's is.

[siderea]

Doh! Thanks!

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Good grief. You can still keep it up on Amazon, right?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not up on Amazon yet, just because I was waiting for a new cover from Neziha. We'll see if I ever do.

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

Or Game of Thrones (incest)

Or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (rape)

Or any of the Anne Bishop Black Jewels books (rape AND incest)

I can't think of anything that hits the trifecta (rape, incest and bestiality).

According to one of my erotica writing friends, Paypal has a documented relationship with the GOP.

[lennan.livejournal.com]

Hasn't the president or CEO donated a whole load of money to Ron Paul (speaking of relationships with the GOP)?

[lennan.livejournal.com]

*sigh* How annoying. Well at least there's Amazon as long as they don't decide to get their panties in a twist about written works.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Paypal just keeps on doing things that make me want to avoid them. Unfortunately, the alternatives aren't used widely enough to be useful for most things I do with Paypal.