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Zkuq on 18 February 2023
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JWeinCom said:
Zkuq said:

No. I dislike the reason they're doing this for. Obviously the things I can do are complain and vote with my wallet, and right now I'm doing the first. I might do the latter if I end up disliking Disney enough, but it doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon. (What might happen is choosing not to purchase if I'm on the edge though.)

JWeinCom said:

First off, this in no way makes it harder to find it. Literally, you can be reading this comic in less than a minute if you desire.

Yup. It might get worse, but I do realize my argument was mostly theoretical (at least in the foreseeable future).

They don't. But they don't also need to commit to not publishing something. It's not clear if this is better than simply not publishing for now and not saying anything about it - it might be, or it might make more sense financially to continue publishing the comics. This is probably the less risky way, but there are some questions marks regarding how much sense this makes exactly.

JWeinCom said:

See, I don't really see an answer in what you said about why Disney would benefit from republishing this.

Probably a little bit of money, but probably not very much. Some goodwill is both gained and lost because of this decision, although I don't know in which ratio.

I chose my words quite carefully, and I specifically did not call this censorship. If you'd like, I could rephrase myself and probably mention self-censorship instead? Or do you already see my point without having to rephrase this very carefully?

JWeinCom said:

So, again, I just really don't see the problem of a person or a company deciding what is in their best interest. Not saying it's perfect, but I really can't think of a better system for determining whether or not things like this should be published. Can you?

People not aggressively ganging up on other people that have views they're personally uncomfortable with when with reasonable effort it can be seen where such views stem from. Kindness, trying to understand the views of opposing parties as well. It doesn't mean you need to let all views be treated equally, but everything doesn't need to be so polarized. This is obviously not realism at the moment, but this is what I will continue to advocate on my part.

I absolutely loathe capitalism. I can see a system having significant capitalistic features as probably being the least bad solution we know of, but you won't find me discussing this on financial terms alone.

I believe the point you're trying to make is that you think it's bad for Disney to not publish it because they are afraid of some perceived potential backlash. This is what you call self-censorship, or earlier, close to censorship. If I'm wrong on that, by all means, correct me.

The problem is that this is just plain wrong. First off, we're not sure why they're not publishing it. So, I do a little stand up. There are some jokes that I told in the past that I don't tell today. These jokes may be offensive to some, but that's not why I don't tell them. I don't tell them because they no longer reflect who I am or what I think. I could see Disney just seeing this and being like, "Ick. I don't feel good about publishing this". If Disney said they were going to publish it, but in my name and give me all the profits that came from it, I'd be like, "ehhhh that's ok."

But, it could also be they are afraid of some backlash. And even then, it's not censorship. They are a consumer company. Their objective is to make money. Choosing to exercise their free speech in a way that they feel is most likely to make them money is their right. This is a *choice* that they are making, not anything that is being imposed on them. Self-censorship is an oxymoron. 

Real censorship is for if Disney... lets say announced their opposition to a particular government law, and the government retaliated by passing laws intended solely to harm them. Of course, nothing like that could ever possibly happen.

As for whether there is a financial incentive to publish this, I think it's kind of silly to argue about that. It's a random Donald Duck comic from 20 years ago. It is not going to contribute any relevant amount to Disney's bottom line.

You said if Disney does enough to offend you, you'll vote with your wallet. And that's a perfectly valid choice that I would support. And, if Disney wants your business, they could change whatever policies offend you, and I presume you would not find that to be censorship or compelled speech. And this is, at worst, that same situation. So, the only problem seems to be that you dislike or disagree with the group that you feel they're catering to. And, you're entitled, but to call it censorship is plain wrong.

Anyway, I probably won't reply any further. Not cause I'm upset or anything, I just feel like I have nothing more to say and have devoted as much time to this conversation as I'd like to. You can still reply if you want, just letting you know I may not read it. Nice chatting with you.

I don't feel like you fully understood my position, and thus I'd certainly have more to say about this, but I'm happy to drop the subject as well. The one thing I will point out however is that I didn't need a lecture about censorship (although a lot of people do seem to need one, so no surprise there that you brought it up).