According to a New York Post article, the White House successfully pressured Amazon to put some books under a “do not promote” order. The books remained available but presumably are less discoverable than comparable books not under the order. The order was issued “the same day Amazon officials met with the White House.”
The order covers “anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective.” The article doesn’t mention any titles, so I can’t judge their worth. Would a book that called attention to legitimate risks or exaggerated claims of effectiveness fall under that category? Biden said, “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations,” a claim whose inaccuracy many people have learned firsthand.
The value of the books isn’t the issue. It’s the application of government pressure to discourage making speech available. The federal government has immense power, and it doesn’t have to make overt threats to tell people they shouldn’t make certain materials available. Under the Biden administration, the pressure is on questioning the effectiveness of vaccines; under a Trump administration, it could be questioning the effectiveness of the Wall.
“Jawboning,” as it’s called, is a gray area between advice and censorship. It’s legitimate for the CDC to say that some claims are unscientific nonsense, but calling a company’s executives to the White House to discuss their business policies is a different matter. Amazon wasn’t prohibited from selling anything, but we don’t know what went on in that meeting.
“Crackpot” theories occasionally turn out to be true, and books raising legitimate scientific issues could get caught up in a general “do not promote” order. The federal government’s vast power is a good reason to be wary when it “suggests” certain materials shouldn’t be seen.
Very troubling.
Is this considered related to similar actions against social media posts?
“Burying” and non-promotion are two different things. “We don’t know what went on in that meeting”. Right. We don’t know what “pressuring” means here, either. Given that a large section of conservative press frames these things as “censorship” when they’re actually not, I guess “pressuring” might be the best they can come up with, as a vague term that can’t be easily refuted. Maybe the advice in the books was genuinely harmful and they were getting a lot of third-party promotion, and the US government’s health department wanted to bring the issue quickly to Amazon’s attention? Maybe the whole story isn’t as sinister as parts of the rabid anti-government press would have us believe?
As I said, what seems to have happened falls short of censorship but still raises serious First Amendment concerns. Just “bringing the issue quickly to Amazon’s attention” doesn’t require a White House meeting; phone calls and email — or if a meeting was really necessary, one in a CDC conference room — would be quicker and simpler.
You’re concerned that the term “pressured” is non-falsifiable. Fair enough, but the lack of information on why Amazon acted as it did is a cause for concern, not reassurance. The proximity of the events in time is disturbing; if health officials had simply given Amazon information, wouldn’t it have taken days for Amazon to review it and reach a decision?
This wasn’t an isolated event; similar pressure on social media companies to remove what the government decides is misinformation has been in the news for some time. Characterizing all these actions as just providing useful expert information strains my credulity.