Don't protect your daughters....

Recently Cate wrote about the issues of censorship of books (see previous blog). I wanted to add to this with an event that should have been a celebration of publishing, but continues to highlight the issues for authors, publishing companies and the industry as a whole.

Before getting into the detail, we need to acknowledge that we do live in a 21st century society that appears sometimes to use the written word with impunity. You only have to look at the keyboard warriors on social media that are allowed to write whatever they like, about whoever they like, with seemingly no fear of prosecution. They hide behind the technological wall and lob virtual grenades that can ruin people with no care or fear of prosecution. To be fair, there are times where well researched posts can make a difference; right an injustice, raise awareness, shine a light. But generally, it seems that the social media companies are content to let inflammatory works sit unchallenged. It is still true today to say that bad news sells more papers, or in this case, more clicks! Afterall, its all fake news.

But what happens when someone inside this web of misdirection, someone who is part of the infrastructure that enables this to happen, decides to speak out? What happens when a publisher decides to support free speech? To support an author by giving them a platform for a legally reviewed, honest account of life within one of the social media platforms? Hold that thought, I’ll get back to this in a moment.

Now take a moment to think about how we treat each other in life. We used to be shocked when we heard of the way men treat women. It should be said, perpetrators are very good at hiding their tracks and the fact that we only rarely hear about it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been going on for a very long time on a huge scale. Giselle Pelicot had abhorrent actions committed against her by the very man she married, trusted, loved. She decided to waive anonymity and shine the light on what men do. Her case was widely reported in the news, and those who had been part of the crimes against her were sent to jail for a long time. While punishment was delivered, the honest truth is that we should never have had this atrocity happening in the first place. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this was an isolated event either. Laura Bates has written a book that does not shy away from the hard cold truth of the “manosphere”. Uncensored, honest, and frightening. Every parent should read this book. Especially, if they have a son.

Recently, the British Book awards were held in London. Something very strange happened there, that highlights the issues of freedom of speech, censorship, and the hypocrisy that exists in social media. The book of the year was Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre (co-authored by Amy Wallace). Sadly Virginia Giuffre took her own life. The four books mentioned in this post accomplish goals of requiring the reader to understand, and feel angry about our world, and in all the cases, about men. They shine a light on the injustice, misogyny, and hate that exists towards women, and how men in power try to silence them. They also provide an opening for discussion that we should all be having with each other. Respectfully.   

Let’s return to the awards, and also the social media aspects of this post. I’ve mentioned a few books (all listed below). The one I have not talked about is yet the Non-Fiction Audio Book of the Year. Careless People, written by Sarah Wynn-Williams. It seeks to expose a lot of the truth about social media corporations. Specifically, Meta, the owners of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

Meta tried to stop the publishing of this book. Why? We won’t talk about the legal aspects, aside from saying that Sarah is not allowed to talk about her book, appear in proximity to her book, or be pictured with the book cover. Corporate culture didn’t succeed in banning the book, but tried instead to dislocate the author from their work. Ironically, in partially succeeding in the attempt at censorship, the awareness created of this work has been huge.

At the awards, Sarah was invited up on stage with Mike Harpley, her editor. Sarah was prohibited from speaking or appearing with her book (it has to be blurred on screen). However, Mike spoke on her behalf saying:  "Despite the CEO who publicly champions free speech, the company has sought to prevent her from promoting her vitally important book. She is prevented from saying anything critical of Meta, in public, or even in private to her family. These restrictions mean she must constantly police her own life, facing life-changing fines for any breach. In an Orwellian development, the company now argues she can’t even be in the vicinity of Careless People or its depiction, meaning her book’s cover cannot be displayed here tonight."

Sarah then accepted, on behalf of Virginia Giuffre, the award for Best Book. Speaking about Virginia’s book and the issues it highlighted she said “…But here’s the strange thing: when you try that hard to silence a woman who is telling the truth, you announce to the whole world that the truth must be very dangerous indeed."

All the books I have mention today do just that.