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Is Macsyna King being censored?
By Steven | June 30, 2011
No doubt you’ve heard that the upcoming Ian Wishart book by Macsyna King is being boycotted by a range of bookstores.
Is this censorship, as some are claiming?
No. Well, not really. Censorship is usually regarded as emanating from the state. There’s no law against stocking this book. There’s no legal penalty for doing so. Your right to freedom of expression under the Bill of Rights limits the government’s powers to restrict information flows. It’s not directly implicated here.
Besides, bookshops decide every day which books to stock and which books not to stock. Is that censorship? Similarly, libraries must choose what to buy. Is that censorship? The media decide which stories to cover. Is that censorship?
Nor is the book actually being stifled. You’ll be able to buy copies through Wishart’s website. In fact, the campaign against it may well, as some have noted, give it more publicity and increase sales.
Still, that’s not to say that there is no free speech issue here. The government isn’t the only actor that can trammel free speech. It might not even be the most significant actor.
And this action does have some similarities to the aspects of censorhip we’d usually regard as concerning. It wants to stifle a book because of the offensiveness of its content (and not just because, say, a bookseller thinks its not likely to sell very well). It seeks to tamp down on King’s viewpoint. It wants to keep out of the public domain information that might be a useful contribution to a range of public debates. It wants the head offices of book chains to order their branches and franchises not to exercise their own choices about what to stock. It threatens coercion (ie a customer boycott). It may well have a very significant practical effect in suppressing the distribution of the book. There’s an uncomfortable element of thought policing: we disapprove of this book so we want to stop you from being able to buy it in the shops. There’s not a clear sense of the harm that this book will do. Nor is there a clear articulation of exactly why it’s being opposed. After all, no-one has yet read it.
For those reasons, the Bill of Rights makes it harder for the government to take actions like this. But as I said, it doesn’t touch private action. Is this grassroots community activism? Or mob rule?
Topics: Censorship, NZ Bill of Rights Act | Comments Off on Is Macsyna King being censored?