Under fire for yanking a conservative book from its online store, Amazon is invoking a new policy banning books that promote “hate speech.”
The existing content guidelines for books policy was updated in the last few months with the line, “We don’t sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech.”
The new policy, which was first reported by Just the News, marks a shift in Amazon’s approach. The company’s content guidelines previously contained no mention of hate speech. In an apparent contradiction, Amazon’s “Seller Central” page on “offensive and controversial materials” currently exempts books from bans on other products that “promote hatred.”
The policy could seemingly be invoked to bar sales of a wide variety of books previously deemed permissible on the platform. Amazon sells between 50 and 80 percent of all physical books in the United States.
Amazon removed Ryan T. Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment sometime before Monday, Feb. 22. Amazon’s removal of the book means that, in addition to not providing the ebook or audiobook, other booksellers on the platform are also banned from selling it.- READ MORE
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