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Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

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Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#91

Post by dmix »

Big Streisand effect on this one, I followed him in the past and noticed his Twitter has exploded in followers/attention since Amazon censored his book.

I decided to read the book to see why it was so threatening and worthy of Amazon crossing into such a dangerous line into censorship. And it was mostly a milquetoast glorified blog post.

I also watched that stupid Plandemic video, which I never would have otherwise, when I heard Google was deleting it from peoples private data backups.

Getting banned like this is a great way to get promotion.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#92

Post by Tinyyy »

millettjon wrote: post #66
code4tee wrote: post #18

There’s a difference between censorship and a book publisher deciding they don’t want to publish or sell a book. This appears to be a case of the later. He’s free to print and distribute his book, but no private company is under any obligation to help him in that endeavor.

Once they publisher reaches near monopoly status this is censorship.

They don’t have a monopoly on book publishing though. Look at how many book publishers there are out there.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#93

Post by nabla9 »

wuliwong wrote: post #27
lsy wrote: post #10

Declining to sell a book in a store isn’t “censorship”. The author could easily host the book on their own website. If the government forces them to take it down, then it’s censorship.

This is technically incorrect. You might argue that censorship is commonly understood to mean specifically government censorship. But censorship by itself does not have to refer to the actions of the state.

You have it completely backwards :)

It's is technically correct. Legally and conceptually censorship is defined only as censorship done by the government.

Censorship is commonly understood to mean any kind of censoring or removing of content.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#96

Post by ceejayoz »

wwweston wrote: post #67
Reedx wrote: post #3

Never thought we'd see wide support for book restriction or censorship again. Are people not reading history or considering the second order effects? Heck, you don't even have to go back that far. Just look how badly "official sources" handled Covid-19. For example, remember what the official word was, even despite being a self-contradiction: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. You may say that's a no…

> Remember what the official word was for all too long: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. Who said masks don't work? What I recall people saying is: * most masks provide marginal protection to the wearer * the masks that provide effective protection should be saved for those in situations where they need them (and can be knowledgeably used) * most people probably don't need those masks There's a wor…

The US Surgeon General: https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/12337257852839321...

"Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus..."

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#97

Post by djsumdog »

GloriousKoji wrote: post #69
Reedx wrote: post #3

Never thought we'd see wide support for book restriction or censorship again. Are people not reading history or considering the second order effects? Heck, you don't even have to go back that far. Just look how badly "official sources" handled Covid-19. For example, remember what the official word was, even despite being a self-contradiction: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. You may say that's a no…

This isn't censorship. Are we going to get mad at a children's book store refusing to carry explicit adult literature? Amazon has put in place publicly know and clearly defined policies for a specific and unique situation. This is not a slippery slope. The second they step out of that boundary there will be severe backlash.

This is a journalist with credentials with a fully sourced and referenced book. It is censorship because of Amazon's absolutely dominance over the market. Their marketshare means they literally control the medium for the majority of people in this world who read e-books.

You can say the same thing about Google/Youtube: it's their platform, but when 90% of people in the world go there first for videos, any removal does turn into censorship.

Yes, we should all be running our own peer-tube instances and authors running their own sites to distribute DRM free books, but until we actually get there (and we won't because people are sheep and don't like putting in effort when so much is in front of them on their 1984 distraction device), then Google, Amazon and others will continue to be The Ministry of Truth.

I wrote about this in 2017:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/the-new-era-of-corporate-...

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#98

Post by darawk »

wwweston wrote: post #67
Reedx wrote: post #3

Never thought we'd see wide support for book restriction or censorship again. Are people not reading history or considering the second order effects? Heck, you don't even have to go back that far. Just look how badly "official sources" handled Covid-19. For example, remember what the official word was, even despite being a self-contradiction: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. You may say that's a no…

> Remember what the official word was for all too long: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. Who said masks don't work? What I recall people saying is: * most masks provide marginal protection to the wearer * the masks that provide effective protection should be saved for those in situations where they need them (and can be knowledgeably used) * most people probably don't need those masks There's a wor…

The CDC and WHO both at various times recommended against the general public wearing masks.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/13/21214114/media-coronavi...

This advice was wrong. It is not just sick people that benefit from wearing masks. It is not true that people are flattening that into "masks don't work". Masks don't work was repeated many, many times by these organizations.

Here's an example:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commenta...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...

https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-need-for-healthy-peop...

Let's not practice revisionist history here. These organizations were dead wrong, and it had severe consequences for the spread of infection.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#99

Post by djsumdog »

StuntPope wrote: post #95

It's gonna get flagged again, I can feel it. What I love about this place is everybody is so open minded.

It doesn't get flagged. To be fair to HN, they do want just tech news. Most COIVD and riot posts are weighted down. It looks like it takes them 3~4 times as many votes to rise as other articles. I can understand them wanting to keep HN focused on tech. It's a good distraction during this.

But when we do occasionally see these posts before they get flushed to page 4 or 5, I love the fact that the comments are filled with a lot of rational back and fourth and good arguments.

Reddit is the ultimate cesspool of extreme-left right now in almost every city/state/country sub. It's absolutely insane and people who do not agree with official narratives are constantly downvoted to oblivion.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#100

Post by stusmall »

millettjon wrote: post #66
code4tee wrote: post #18

There’s a difference between censorship and a book publisher deciding they don’t want to publish or sell a book. This appears to be a case of the later. He’s free to print and distribute his book, but no private company is under any obligation to help him in that endeavor.

Once they publisher reaches near monopoly status this is censorship.

What? I'd be shocked if Amazon even published a majority of books sold. There is no way they are monopoly or even close. I looked and couldn't find reliable stats on it. Does anyone else have any?
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