Burning books — digitally
Amazon dominates the book-selling industry in the United States, with roughly 53% of all physical book purchases and closer to 80% of all ebook purchases funneling through the tech giant’s online commerce platform. When the company “disappears” a title, it all but vanishes from the marketplace of ideas.
This is an outsize influence for any single company, and Amazon should wield its power with caution.
Amazon has been scrutinized for quietly removing from its site a controversial book titled “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” including its Kindle and Audible stores. No notice to author or publisher. The book had been available three years. The company has updated its content guidelines, it said. To be banned: “content that we determine is hate speech.”
The vagueness here is a smoke screen for Amazon’s simple predilections.
This is a new form of censorship, and it should be labeled as such. While the company has the legal right to remove anything it wants from its site, canceling a book is akin to a digital book burning. Instead of a match, it’s a delete key. Press it and, voila, it’s gone.
This is a free speech issue. And, even if one were to consider the speech in a particular book to be “bad” speech, the answer to bad speech is more speech.
Amazon has choices in dealing with books that someone finds objectionable for some reason. The company could commission a response to the book and advertise it alongside the original work; or flag the content with a warning; or recommend readers purchase a book with opposing views. But removing the book from the “shelves” altogether is a drastically wrong precedentthat urges one to reflect on the dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury. When Bradbury penned this novel in 1953, he was warning of the dangers of book-burning (literal), with a reference to the temperature at whichpaper ignites.
In a country that historically has valued free speech, it’s difficult to portray Amazon’s move as anything other than dangerously un-American. Today, it’s a book on the transgender movement, but what for tomorrow? Books arguing in support of religious practices some consider discriminatory? Books not inclusive enough? Dr. Seuss? Sadly, soberingly, it seems the future is now.
Ironically, Amazon’s attempt to bury the book has resulted in skyrocketing sales of “When Harry Became Sally” on other sites like Barnes & Noble. While this does indicate that an Amazon ban cannot completely eliminate a book — at least not immediately — relegating “conservative” books to certain sites will only contribute to the polarization of the country in the long run, sending buyers of different ideologies to different stores.
A trio of Republican senators have fired off a sharply worded letter to Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, demanding to know why the book was initially sold then vanished, how exactly it violated the company’s policy, whether other conservativeleaning content is at risk. The public, also, wants answers.
Erasing “When Harry Became Sally” isn’t the first time Amazon has removed content from its platform, as the site has also disappeared works that advance conspiracy theories and that deny the Holocaust. It also kicked the conservative social media website Parler off its servers in January, effectively hamstringing the platform.
Conservatives are pointing to a shadowy bias against right-leaning content in big tech, but the implications of Amazon’s ban are much greater than political censorship. The companyis exercising a sort of thought policing,both for authors and readers.
Americansshould be united in their condemnation of such practices, regardless of the content being censored. Engagement with an idea and countering it with additional speech leads to a more open, enlightened society. Banningideas is akin to burning them.