Guest:

• Jonathan Zittrain, professor at Harvard Law School and author of "The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It"

What do these books have in common?

• The Catcher in the Rye
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Lord of the Rings

You may be having a flashback to high school English class, thinking: is there something similar about the authors? The main characters? The symbolism or themes? Well, here’s the thread: they’re all on the “Banned and Challenged Classics” list from the American Library Association. Check out the full list of these banned – and beloved – books below:

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
10. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
11. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
12. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
13. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
14. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
15. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
16. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
17. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
18. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
19. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
20. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
21. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
22. Native Son, by Richard Wright
23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
24. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
25. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
26. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
27. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
28. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
29. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
30. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
31. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
32. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
33. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
34. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
35. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
36. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron
37. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
38. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
39. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
40. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
41. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
42. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
43. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
44. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
45. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
46. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

Throughout history, classic books like these have been banned for a plethora of reasons – including challenging political regimes, introducing radical ideas, pushing buttons with controversial language or content. But Jonathan Zittrain, author of “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It,” argues that censorship today in the digital age is more insidious than ever before.

Take this example. After the release of Amazon’s e-book reader, the Kindle, one publisher offered an edition of George Orwell’s dystopian classic  1984. Panic ensued when the publisher realized it did not have the proper copyright permissions, and Amazon – fearing litigation – reached into the Kindle of every user who had downloaded the book and deleted it.

Unlike buying a paper book, Zittrain says, whenever you purchase an e-book you’re really purchasing a service, not a product. “When you get something like an e-book reader, you’re starting a long term relationship with the vendor of that device,” he says. That means that, instead of having an unadulterated hard copy of a text in your possession, the copy on your reader can be tweaked, or edited, or deleted altogether by the provider at any time. 

In the case of this ill-fated copy of 1984, Amazon wasn’t seeking to ban the book, just pull an unlicensed copy.  But Zittrain warns that, as we rely less and less on the written word, it will be more difficult to prevent content from being censored or changed, even for seemingly innocuous reasons.

 To hear more from Zittrain about the changing landscape of privacy in the age of the Internet – including the trouble with wearable tech and a mobile app that could obliterate the concept of a private conversation  - tune in to our full interview, above.

Still curious?

• Read Zittrain's take on Amazon and censorship from the July 2013 edition of WIRED.
• Check out Zittrain's appearance on The Colbert Report. 
• Read Zittrain's article on buying services versus products: "The Personal Computer is Dead."