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  3. Amazon is under fire again, this time for profiling from ebooks on terror, hate and violence. The Muslim Council of Britain has

Amazon is under fire again, this time for profiling from ebooks on terror, hate and violence. The Muslim Council of Britain has

admin2014-06-25  9
问题     Amazon is under fire again, this time for profiling from ebooks on terror, hate and violence. The Muslim Council of Britain has called on Amazon to take "proper responsibility" for the content of books on its site, with one e-book on sale reportedly including images of the Qur’an being burned and a woman being hanged.
    All booksellers make money out of books featuring terror or violence whether it’s Homer’s Iliad or JG Ballard’s Crash but virtual booksellers appear to present a new threat to public morality. Once upon a time, we could rely on traditional publishers to make sound editorial decisions to publish obscenity and bloodshed, now anyone can do it.
    The last time Amazon faced an outcry, over a book on paedophilia, it initially defended its actions with some guts, stating that it was censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message was objectionable and that it supported the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions. Ultimately, however, the book was withdrawn. A month later, Amazon was reported as having removed some erotica from its Kindle store. This was the same period in which it censored WikiLeaks, arguing that the website was in breach of its terms of service and was putting human rights workers at risk.
    Amazon’s inconsistency has made it more vulnerable to pressure. Its own guidelines on offensive material state that "what we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect", which is almost as helpful as the famous US supreme court judgment nearly 50 years ago on hardcore pornography, "I know it when I see it". While such vagueness may give a wide latitude for freedom of expression, it also means that when there’s enough moral outrage, it may be difficult for Amazon to resist caving in.
    Clearer guidelines are needed to protect free speech online and that should include material that causes offence. Expecting virtual booksellers and publishers to operate as taste and decency police would introduce unaccountable censorship based on subjective criteria.
    The famous obscenity trials of the 60s and 70s were only in rare cases about protecting great literature—it was the right to freedom of expression that was at stake, whatever the quality of the content. Shortly before he died, the great writer and lawyer John Mortimer recalled his famous defence of the editors of Oz magazine in an interview for Index on Censorship. "We weren’t defending anything with any particular merit," Mortimer said. "We were defending a principle, I suppose, that you shouldn’t have any censorship, that nobody should tell you what to read or write. It’s entirely your own business. " He believed that it was a principle that, a generation later, had been undermined. The call for censorship and the expectation that online intermediaries police the internet are becoming regular demands. So it’s necessary to reassert that fundamental principle: the right to read anything we like.
Amazon’ s guidelines on offensive materials may bring______.
选项 A、an irresponsible censorship
B、a free publishing system
C、a lot of moral outrage
D、protection for free online speech
答案A
解析 第四段首先指出，亚马逊关于冒犯性内容的指导原则过于模糊宽泛，这可能导致在面对外部压力(道德义愤)时，亚马逊会在“捍卫个人自由选择权”方面进行妥协。第五段进一步指出，指望虚拟书商和出版商充当品味与道德警察可能会催生建立在主观标准之上的、不负责任的审查制度。可见，作者认为亚马逊关于冒犯性内容的指导原则可能带来一个不负责任的审查制度，[A]选项正确。
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