A new Texas law forces vendors to rate sexual content in schoolbooks. They're not happy about it | CNN Business
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Book vendors selling to Texas public schools, ranging from national sellers like Amazon to local bookstores with eight employees, must now rate the books they sell based on sexual content.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ninja/post/49635

Book vendors selling to Texas public schools, ranging from national sellers like Amazon to local bookstores with eight employees, must now rate all the books they sell based on sexual content, according to new legislation signed into law on June 12.

If the book vendor fails to comply with state library standards that will be in place by January 1, 2024, they’d be barred from selling to Texas public schools.

    •  gabereal451   ( @gabereal451@beehaw.org ) 
      7•1 year ago

      I read this as targeting book sales (such as the Scholastic book sales) rather than texts or anything like that. This is ultimately going to kill the middle-grade book market in Texas.

      Also, according to the article, publishers (like Penguin Random House) can be considered vendors too, as well as Amazon and large or small independent book sellers. Ultimately, it seems logical that a book’s editor would be the one to rate the book (since the editor is the one that would be championing the book at the publishing house) and the rating would be copy-pasted by the sellers. However, it would be much easier (money-wise and lawsuit-wise) for publishers to just not sell their books in texas.

      I swear, texas just gets worse and worse. Every week I think “there’s no possible way those clowns in the texas state legislature can make their state any worse than it is” and every week they prove me wrong.