“Is the [Biden] Admin asking us to remove books”?
What’s the difference between books and any other kind of speech? Books have an emotional quality to them.
Delete someone’s post and it can be called enforcing community guidelines, but burn a book and suddenly you’re a Nazi. Speech is still speech, but the idea of going after books in particular summons all sorts of historical references from the Muslim destruction of the Library of Alexandria to book-burning rallies in Berlin.
It’s why the Left was able to mobilize so much opposition by accusing school boards and parents of trying to “ban books” by keeping pornographic books out of schools.
Still every prior form of political censorship was defended by leftists, why not go after books on Amazon?
Tyler O’Neil at the Daily Signal reports that the Biden team saw no apparent difference between targeting books on Amazon and any other forms of social media censorship that it was pushing.
Andrew Slavitt, then a senior adviser on Biden’s COVID-19 response team, had previously asked, “Who can we talk to about the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation [on] Amazon?”
And by “talk to”, they meant get rid of.
In one email produced through a House Judiciary Committee subopena had an Amazon employee asking, “Is the [Biden] Admin asking us to remove books”?
After the March 9 meeting at the White House, Amazon staff strategized how to respond to a negative story that Buzzfeed would publish discussing “COVID-19 related books for sale on Amazon.” Staff noted that they were “feeling pressure from the White House Taskforce” on the issue of books “related to vaccine misinformation.”
The resulting compromise instead settled for shadowbanning the books.
In this discussion, a staffer noted that “we did enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective on 3/9, and will review additional handling options for these books with you, [redacted], and [redacted] on 3/19.”
That March 9 decision to change Amazon’s algorithm to avoid promoting “anti-vax books” appears to have happened after the meeting with White House staff.
The media will predictably support this or ignore it: thus crossing another line. And at some point we’ll run out of lines. Liberals used to love Heinrich Heine’s line, “where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.” There’s some truth to it. At least insofar as the sorts of regimes that burned people tended to have also burnt books beforehand.
The pattern here is similar to what we saw before with the #TwitterFiles. While externally Dot Coms defend censorship, internally we’ve seen a good deal of discomfort from top execs with what they’re being asked to do.
That discomfort is key. A judicial decision banning the government from pushing companies to censor materials was protested on the grounds that the government was persuading, not ordering. Liberals pretended that there was such a distinction. But the more of these cases are aired, the more that distinction collapses.
Justice Clarence Thomas had warned that government agencies pressuring social media companies to censor might not be considered “private action.” And without that, it’s just government censorship.
Mark says
Nazi Germany they burned books they did NOT accept !!
John Smith says
The Biden administration is the most evil and corrupt dangerous regime that has ever existed in the history of the USA. If this administration remains in power, then the free world is f—ked.
You have to get them out because there will be no going back.
John Zeller says
NO, the Obama regime was, and is. Biden is a hollow puppet of Obama’s deep state.
John Smith says
John, I see were your coming from and you do have a point.
bagsgroove says
You mean Forbidden Biden and his gang can read books ? I can’t believe it !
Walter Sieruk says
Now is a very good and fitting time to reiterate the George Washington in his knowledge and wisdom had declared “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
Joe Biden would like to silence the people who oppose him ,as all tyrants want to do
Just look at the American citizens who are the political prisoners of the Biden regime ,from January 6th 2021 , who are still mistreated and still suffering without their day in court pottrial in inhuman conditions that only a result of a ruthless dictator , meaning Biden.
In contrast,those violent and dangerous Muslim terrorists who are held at Gitmo have better living conditions and have more access legal council than the American patriots who were arrested and still in Biden’s political prison since that leftist setup on 1/6/21.
somehistory says
OT
“MoMA shuts down abruptly as pro-Palestinian protesters flood building”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/moma-shuts-down-abruptly-as-pro-palestinian-protesters-flood-building/ar-BB1i7ALy?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=cdae788e8afb47c89d9a14c6affed3ab&ei=99
rick says
Please name the books Amazon censored.
somehistory says
Here is a link to what the wh wanted amazon to ban
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/02/06/exclusive-heres-book-white-house-suggested-amazon-should-ban?utm_source
“As The Daily Signal exclusively reported Monday, Amazon ultimately yielded to White House pressure to take action against vaccine-skeptical books, apparently shortly after a meeting with White House staff.
An Amazon employee noted that “we did enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective on 3/9, and will review additional handling options for these books with you, [redacted], and [redacted] on 3/19.””
Trevor Bailey says
Two books I ordered last year 1) The Indictment by Frank Gaffney and 2) The Democratic Party Hates America by Mark R Levin. I waited for the books to be delivered within the week of the order date but after 4-6 weeks of placing the order Amazon emailed me saying your order is unavailable from Amazon store please try another outlet. Both are particularly sensitive to the Biden administration. I’m not that keen on audio books as I prefer the physical book to read (called me old fashion if you wish). But realising I could not purchases this books from Amazon UK it made me think if there was something going on. Not only that I went to a local bookshop (Waterstones) and asked them if they could order the two titles and the response I received (after he checked on the computer system) was “we don’t stock those books in the warehouse”. Well, we can be grateful Robert Spencers books are available on Amazon UK.
ed says
Where and when has this happened before?
Homer Bedloe says
If the Biden Administration wants to stop the truth from being published it needs to start burning down publishing houses instead of food processing plants.
Walter Sieruk says
Joe Biden would like to silence, ”by hook or by cook.” all his critics and replace them with people would only praise him.
That villain Biden does serve as an example of the “Big Brother “ type villain with his betrayal of America and the American people. So much so, let us not be naive about him, that if possible he would inflect upon America and Americans a socialist /Marxist tyranny if he could.
As the type of tyrannical government as in, the classic novel 1984 by George Orwell that was later made into a movie. In which, is headed by “Big Brother”, who issued a new speak dictionary with taught “Peace is war” and “Love is hate” and “Truth is error” and “ Freedom is slavery.” So much so that when the State headed by Big Brother declared that if it says “2+2 = 5 then it is 5.”
This is also, somewhat, similar Joe Biden , “Big Brother Biden” when that liar said on July 2022 when he said: “Look, the border is secure. We are working to make the border more secure.’
Big Brother Biden had also said “Inflation is straight.” As stated above the villain in the novel “1984: in which that “Big Brother said that “Peace is war” and Love is hate>’
Likewise Big Brother Biden calling those non-violent conservative patriots “domestic terrorists” What a terrible outlandish and outrageous slanderous thing of Big Brother Biden to say about them.
To add to this folly the Patriot pro – Trump rally on January 6th 2001 in Washington DC is Big Brother Biden called an “insurrection.”
As the news commentator on Fox news, rightly, said, “That was not an Insurrection”
For the American Pro-Trump American patriot protesters were unarmed and didn’t attempt to overthrow the United States government. In fact the people who died that day were two pro- Trump American patriots and another patriot were almost beaten to death by the thugs in uniform who are the leftist politically correct appointed Capital “police.”
Still, Big Brother Biden, with his “ new speak “ calls the patriots “insurrectionist.”
How slanderous, nevertheless Big Brother Biden had spoken.
With that leftist Biden regime having so much power in the US government is a situation that is terrible horrendous.
The actual year is 2023 but in spirit it’s “1984.”
R_not says
islamic countries also ban books – eg: Bible. And the one that is joementia’s puppet master is a moslem – Obama who said he would work for the moslems.
Susan says
I got my rights to comment or to ask questions halted by the “Amazon community” for a comment which they refuse to identify or what I exactly said that was ” wrong”. I didn’t curse, “call names”, nothing about vaccines, etc. I can’t
recall what it might have been. I imagine it’s about a digital book. I’ve sent multiple emails to the community which go unanswered. What I am more upset about is that it prevents me from asking any questions about a product I might be interested in and comments about orders that aren’t up to par.
I’m sure I made a comment some Leftist didn’t like.
Look at the subject matter now of the majority of the Prime/ Amazon movies, as well.
I have really been leaving Amazon as my last choice for my purchases. Just because they are “easier” doesn’t mean it’s the place I should be spending my money. I’ll be adding Amazon to my ” list”.