Amazon Banning Books
Banning books was once seen as the ultimate sin, and something only the Nazis would do, but today we’re seeing a growing number of books disappearing down the memory hole in the name of political correctness and stopping “hate speech.” 65% of all books are sold through Amazon and they have a virtual monopoly over the entire industry.54 They are the reason Borders, Walden Books, and B. Dalton went out of business. Amazon advertises themselves as the world’s largest bookstore where you can find practically any book, new or used, since if they don’t stock it, they (supposedly) allow anyone to list used copies for sale themselves.
For over twenty years since Amazon was launched in 1995 they would sell any book new or used, but recently that all changed. In July 2018 a children’s book titled No Dress for Timmy was banned for being “transphobic.” It was written by Shefflorn Ballantyne and is described as, “A story of a little boy who found himself in a perplexing situation where he was forced to choose between speaking the truth and cheering on a friend who thinks of himself as a girl.”55 The young protagonist basically wouldn’t support a transgender classmate.
After an LGBT advocacy organization called Family Rhetoric discovered it when searching for LGBT-themed children books, they launched a campaign to pressure Amazon to ban the book, which they did. The group later celebrated on their Facebook page saying, “We did it. You did it friends! The link to No Dress for Timmy is not working. Amazon took down the book. It’s gone!”56 And indeed it is.
Amazon banned almost all of pickup artist Roosh V’s books just days after his latest one was released, titled Game: How to Meet, Attract, and Date Attractive Women.57 They wouldn’t even give him a reason, just that they “violated” their policy and “can’t offer any additional insight or action on this matter.”58 Roosh had come to the attention of various radical feminist groups who see him as a huge “misogynist” for his views on women and feminism, and they most likely lobbied Amazon to pull his books.
Juanita Broaddrick’s book about Bill Clinton allegedly raping her was removed in June 2018, and then later restored.59 It appears that Amazon keeps testing how far they can push the envelope by gauging the backlash, but not everyone is so lucky to have their books re-listed after media reports denounce the censorship.
In August 2018 Amazon banned a book that contained plans to build a 3D printed gun called The Liberator Code Book: An Exercise in Freedom of Speech, which had been listed by the publisher just a few weeks earlier. An Amazon spokesperson said it violated their guidelines.60 Yet they sell the Anarchist’s Cookbook and other bomb-making manuals (at least at the time this book was first published in November 2019). The Anarchist’s Cookbook author William Powell later denounced his terrorist manual which he wrote in 1971 when he was just nineteen-years-old.61 But he does not own the rights to the book; the publisher does (now Ozark Press), which keeps it in print, and which Amazon still sells.62
The Columbine school shooters, who planted bombs in the school aside from shooting and killing twelve students and one teacher, owned a copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook and used it to manufacture their bombs.63 When members of the Black Liberation Army were arrested in the 1970s for murdering several police officers, they had a copy in their possession and are believed to have planted a bomb in a San Francisco church during the funeral of a police officer who died in the line of duty.64
Thomas Eugene Spinks, who bombed ten abortion clinics in the 1980s, used the Anarchist Cookbook to build his bombs.65 Many others have used it as well, including Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the radical Islamic terrorists who committed the July 2005 bombings on the London public transportation system used the book as their instruction manual too. So No Dress for Timmy is too “transphobic” to be sold, but a literal bomb-making manual used by terrorists in numerous high-profile bombings is okay.
Jared Taylor, a leader in the white identitarian [pro-white] community, had several of his books censored from Amazon in February 2019, including White Identity, despite having been sold on the site since 2011.66 The following month Tommy Robinson’s book Mohammed’s Koran was banned from Amazon just days after Facebook and Instagram banned him (in response to Tommy posting a documentary critical of the BBC on his YouTube channel).67 His book was deemed “Islamophobic.”68
Then in March 2019 they banned David Duke’s autobiography My Awakening and another one of his books titled Jewish Supremacism where he details what he believes is a Jewish supremacist belief system within Judaism.69 The books had been available on Amazon since they first came out, one in 1998, and the other in 2004, but were removed shortly after a no-name freelance writer “inquired” about why Amazon was selling books written by a “white supremacist.”70 They’re not just shown as out of stock or unavailable; the entire listings for the books have been deleted, and it appears Amazon is also prohibiting any 3rd party sellers from listing used copies as well.
They also banned several books published by the Nation of Islam which were critical of Jews,71 as well as a few written by Christian pastor Texe Marrs, including Holy Serpent of the Jews, for being “anti-semitic.”72 This is especially interesting because Amazon still sells Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf (for now).73
After CNN successfully pressured Amazon to censor various popular documentary films from their Prime Video streaming service in March 2019 that question the safety of some vaccines, they went on to lament that Amazon still sold “anti-vaccine” books, saying, “while some anti-vaccine videos are gone from the Prime streaming service, a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.”74 Amazon soon banned several “anti-vax” books for promoting what they called “vaccine misinformation.”75
In July 2019 they banned books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, who is best known for advocating conversion therapy for homosexuals. Two of his most popular books on the subject, Healing Homosexuality and A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality were taken down after sustained pressure from LGBT activists.76 Perhaps Amazon will ban some of Sigmund Freud’s books next because he believed that homosexuality was caused by a disruption in a child’s development due to a dysfunctional relationship with their parents in terms of the role those parents fill in their lives.77
For several years now Amazon has banned sales of all Confederate flags because they’re considered to be symbols of “white supremacy” these days.78 They have also banned the sale of various Halloween costumes liberals consider to be offensive, like the “Tranny Granny” costume that’s “transphobic,”79 a Chinese dress for being “cultural appropriation,” and a “sexy burka” costume for being disrespectful to Islam. In January 2019 Amazon removed dozens of other products that were said to be offensive to Muslims as well.80