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I need help understanding part of this story. You referred to illegal erotic content. Is writing erotica about incest really illegal? I'm not interested in reading it, but freedom of speech kind of demands that books containing that sort of thing are allowed to be published if someone wants to publish it ya know?
I'm not a legal expert. I understand there was a stink because a British retailer displayed explicit incest erotica next to children's books. Apparently, they didn't even have an 18+ filter, or a filter question "Do you wish to view explicit erotic titles? yes/no" The British government came down on that retailer, so I assume the retailer had offended against British law - whether by selling incest books or by not having a filter, I don't know.
That makes much more sense then. Books containing that sort of thing should definitely behind a mature filter
It is illegal to disseminate sexual acts depicting children, as child pornography is prohibited in most civilized countries. Incest is not illegal. Adults exploiting children in any situation, regardless of incest, often is illegal.
Something like that, yes. And in the case of WHSmith, the incest-with-kids books were apparently displayed on a page of children's books. Understandably, parents were outraged.
Interesting, I hadn't realized that that included written depictions, for some reason I had only considered that to apply to visual depictions. This seems strange to me though since there are some well-known books that contain incest involving children such as a lot of Heinlein
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the authors should mention whether or not their book contains questionable content like incest. That's not really something you should spring on your reader in the middle of the book like it's no big deal. I don't like Kobo's immediate handling of the situation, but I also feel that if a book contains something objectionable, it should have a "this book contains blah blah blah" warning line somewhere after the blurb.
I agree. The book description should say what the book is, so people can avoid it. In the WH Smith case that triggered the Kobo Fiasco it wasn't the lack of a content description, though. It was the fact that the child porn books were displayed on the same page as children's books. No filter, nothing. Children browsing for books to put on their wishlist for Santa were exposed to having-sex-with-daddy books.
I feel that it was that retailer's fault for not having an 18+ filter on their website. Also Kobo's fault for not categorising the books they supplied to that retailer. Certainly not the authors' fault. Yet the authors got the blame.
That sounds like a problem with Kobo's set up.
Yep. WH Smith and Kobo both have fundamental problems with their set up. Rather than correct those flaws, they point the finger at indie authors. Classical scapegoat strategy.
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