New Zealand Bans Manifesto

[Yonadav]

Banned "books" usually acquire a status of "infamous charismatic intrigue and emphasis" which ends up giving them more views/reads/weight than ever. Basically a counterproductive move IMO and also banning "books" is a nonono, agree with BSB4.

Also, the banning of literature like this has been predicted in just about every bit of radical and racist literature. Timothy McVeigh was a big fan of The Turner Diaries.  One of the things that Turner was rebelling against was the banning of literature that the state considered to be dangerous. It's pretty sad to see the predictions of hate literature coming true.

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK that the copy pasted ramblings of a white separatist can really be called a "book" or "literature"... memory holing it wouldn't make the lifted chunks of text go away, and it still remains that incitement is not protected speech, nor is any right to free speech absolute.

It's sticky, and a bad look, but them's the breaks. If we're serious about protecting rights, including the rights of others, we can't really get squeamish about enforcing that when it looks bad or wouldn't be politically expedient.

[Brian37]

Banned "books" usually acquire a status of "infamous charismatic intrigue and emphasis" which ends up giving them more views/reads/weight than ever. Basically a counterproductive move IMO and also banning "books" is a nonono, agree with BSB4.

Not the point.

If say tomorrow, I put out a flier passing it around door to door en mass, saying, "All theists should be liquidated." I am an atheist, I don't believe anyone needs a religion, but those words do advocate harm to others. 

NZ isn't advocating book burning anymore that in America the KKK in the past was successfully prosecuted for incitement to violence. 

I am all for free speech, and agree offensive speech SHOULD be protected, but like everything else in life, including the products we buy, are still subject to regulation. Just like if you buy a car or cell phone, and the makers do not give a shit about how that product impacts society, they can be held liable.

Again, the banning of that manifesto isn't promoting book burning in as as much as it is a regulation to stop more of the same.

In America it isn't legal, like it was in the past, to post "White's only" regarding bathrooms, buses and bathrooms. I think that is more what NZ's intent is with this.

I think it was Voltaire who said something like, "I may vehemently disagree with what you have to say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."

I am sure even he would also agree with the concept of, "Your rights end where my nose begins."

So again, this gets a "it depends".

[epronovost]

Banned "books" usually acquire a status of "infamous charismatic intrigue and emphasis" which ends up giving them more views/reads/weight than ever. Basically a counterproductive move IMO and also banning "books" is a nonono, agree with BSB4.

All the publications of ISIS were forbidden of distribution in pretty much all western countries and reading one could actually lend you in trouble for terrorism charge. Banned book acquire a great popularity depending on what's the content of said book. If I write a book so sexually perverted it's banned, I can bet you my house and my dogs people will try to read it. If my book is simply a screed about killing Muslims, besides anti-islamophobic activists and islamophobes, not many others wil be tempted in reading it even if it's censored. I'm not sure you have read or even searched for ISIS propaganda and articles.

[The Grand Nudger]

Researchers and journalists would likely want and need to read it, ofc.  Part of what makes it rough is that if you've got researchers citing it's contents and a hate group under the corrupt organization act doing the same....the hate groups defense against dissemination is pretty much built in.  

The whole freeze peach grift is just so hilariously limited these days to white supremacy.  As you note, muslim fanatic shit is banned and no one notices or even bats an eye.  Some wonderbread domestic terrorist apes the shit he's read on 8chan in a word doc and doing the same is suddenly a threat to liberal democracy and "literature".

Our kneejerk reactions to these things just aren't equipped to handle, we thought we'd put this sort of shit behind us, and don't have it in mind when we calcify our opinions about protecting the written word.

[Fireball]

Agree that this censorship is wrong. Whatever the dumbass read to get him to the state of perpetrating what he did is all still readily available.

[Brian37]

Agree that this censorship is wrong. Whatever the dumbass read to get him to the state of perpetrating what he did is all still readily available.

There was a time when "Whites only" was widely available too.

I get the intent of your objection. But there still is a huge difference between book burning/banning and stopping incitement to violence.

Regulations are not bans. 

This isn't intended to silence free speech in as much as it is intended to stop a copy cat. And again, is also why Holocaust denial in Germany is illegal. Just like in America you could not today, get away with printing post cards of lynchings, which we once did, with the intent of advocating lynchings. But just like the Holocaust Museum has Nazis on display, the Museum isn't claiming Nazis are good. But it it is still reasonable today, be it the KKK or Nazis to sue or charge groups for advocating violence. 

The manifesto was not intended as a writing of a historian saying, "This happened and it was bad". The intent of the manifesto was just like Mein Kampf. The event is on record, so it will not be forgotten. But it should not be marketed as a lagit form of protest or dissent.

It is the same reason it is illegal to print en mass bomb making material or print ways to poison others.

[arewethereyet]

The people most likely to follow the ideas outlined in the manifesto probably already have access to it or they know how to get their hands on it. It's already out there and there's no way to put that genie back in the bottle.

A ban also adds the allure of 'forbidden fruit'.

Censoring it isn't a good plan.

[Sal]

One of the prevalent conspiracy theories is that NZ police is doing damage control since they reacted so poorly to the Christchurch terrorist attack. I mean, the response time was 36 minutes, in a city center, where in places like New York, it's less than 5 minutes.

[epronovost]

The people most likely to follow the ideas outlined in the manifesto probably already have access to it or they know how to get their hands on it.

Actually no, a lot of the people most likely to follow the ideas outlined in the manifesto are still kids or haven't sinked into the sewers of internet yet. No imminent threat wold impacted by this move, but you have to consider the long term.