It looks like the rejection email was from Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). So Amazon isn't refusing to sell the book, just refusing to publish it, from my understanding. That seems like a much less significant issue if that is the case - there are lots of alternative publishers to Amazon, so it is less concerning if they have more strict standards, since you could just go through another publisher and sell on Amazon through them.
After a half hour long conversation with my neighbor last week of him trying to convince me that Bill Gates is behind coronavirus, please, for the love of our future, continue banning information that is blatantly put up on a bad faith basis.
It's exhausting to see my mom and dad succumb to a new conspiracy every other day. I don't see how else we can curb this other than for the tech companies to start aggressively moderating, just like how HN is moderated.
I am all for private businesses' right to censor their platforms as they please. But let's consider why they do so. Amazon and others aren't banning "covid dissidents" because they are worried about people's health nor is it because of some evil conspiracy. The reason is simple and obvious: because they've determined it to be the best course of action PR-wise. Or in other words, it's because what the public wants.
And that is where it stars to rub me very, very wrong way. Just think about it. Not only the average Joe knows exactly how this totally novel global problem with a shit ton of unknown variables should be handled (that's par the course). But he's so certain of his knowledge that he wants anyone trying to voice a different opinion to get the treatment that was previously reserved only for obvious dangerous crazies like the nazis. To me this is the empirical proof that the slippery slope does exist, unfolding before our eyes.
The book is back on amazon as of now https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089P216NP/
> and he’s even a Twitter blue check.
This line made me laugh. As if a Twitter blue check means anything at all. Even used “even”.
Regarding the “censorship”, I’m not sure why anyone thinks Amazon as a publisher should just publish anything. They are not even close to being a monopoly and there are a million other channels to publish.
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.
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.
If you are worried about a private company "censoring" your speech, you should take this as a sign that you've allowed said company to get far too big. Restricting private speech by increasing the reach of government to limit it will only backfire in the end if your goal is freedom of speech.
The right approach for free speech is smaller companies AND smaller government.
I wonder why he hasn't used his freedom of speech to make the text of his pamphlet freely available on his own website, instead of depending on a publisher to carry it.
Granted, it would be harder to monetize this speech, that way. He'd have to find a payment provider, take payments directly, et cetera. But I don't see why those ancillaries should detract from upholding a principle that clearly means so much to him.
Just a note that the book in question has been re-published: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089P216NP/
Most things we consider “true” today were considered “false” right before they became “true”.
We’re just not great at being selective when discarding things, so it’s best to keep them around.
I do find it odd, looking back at the short history of the world dealing with covid, that there has been no (that I'm aware of) institutional strategy in combating a "novel" virus with a "novel" therapy (ie the off-label use of existing pharmaceuticals) and the MSM is and has been poised to attack that strategy and the small-scale, uncoordinated efforts when they discover them happening.
If Covid-19 were a movie, the hero would have stumbled across a clever combination of generic drugs that would turn the tide of global death. But here in reality, any such efforts are vilified and attacked for no coherent (but seemingly organized) reason.
First they came for controversial right wing views... then they came for Covid “disinformation”...
Putting the joke aside, I really think we are starting to see that once this door opens, it will only get worse. The pressure will increase to ban books and it will happen, whether or not it’s controversial or disinformation or whatever.
I can only hope this will be enough of a market opportunity that someone else can build a business to rival things like amazon.
There's a lot of issues at play here- what constitutes censorship, the monopolistic power of big tech platforms, how to address misinformation. I suspect the root cause is that we live in an extremely segmented information society now, modern life is incredibly complex and self-filtered information bubbles very easy to fall into. Echoing some of the comments, the Streisand effect will only disseminate misinfo and disinfo further, and create a martyr effect that self-defeatingly amplifies the power of the content being suppressed.* But there's really no other good options either. We live in an age where one set of facts will only be countered by a different set of opposing facts, a different list of footnotes and sources, all tailored for that opposite opinion. No one really has time to check all of the links anymore. So much of society simply rests on blind faith on one's own set of experts and gurus. The polarized environment renders your opposite experts into dupes, liars, or agents of shadowy powers, worthy of the worst insults. "Education" doesn't really help fight misconception or conspiracy theories because any inconvenient fact is easily rejected as propaganda by your enemies.
* Though not in all cases. In some cases de-platforming has been very effective https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming...
How does this apply to tech specifically? Amidst this climate of post-truth and truthiness, the big tech platforms have become de facto gatekeepers, guardians of public truth. Something they neither are capable of being, nor should they be. In a healthy civilization, the government, businesses, and civil society should all have roles to play in promoting harmony and fostering understanding. But we've somehow let the infection of division and ignorance take root, so here we are.
On the flip side, something I was thinking about regarding the recent Facebook/Twitter controversies and policing or not policing the president's speech: how is it really different from '90s AOL chat rooms or '00s vBulletin message boards having TOS that forbid certain types of inflammatory, hateful, or otherwise objectionable content? Why was everyone fine with those supposedly "anti-free speech" or "unconstitutional" policies in past decades? Was it simply a matter of scale? Those platforms and online communities were smaller so fewer people got mad about them? Because for a long time, people posting on the internet simply accepted that there is no absolute free speech anywhere, even if they hated the mods.
This use of the verb 'spike' does not conform to any definition I found in the dictionary. Is it commonly used this way?
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.
> So as a libertarian, it pains me to say, I would encourage and welcome anti-trust investigations into big tech platforms such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Apple.
What you mean to say is you’re not a libertarian.
You have a relationship with Amazon which previously consisted of voluntary, mutually beneficial exchanges. Amazon determined the exchanges were no longer beneficial and elected to stop. You wanted to continue, and so you invite the full might of government to threaten to destroy Amazon (but not actually destroy them cause then you wouldn’t get what you want.) You pull in Facebook and Google and try to make a larger argument to obfuscate the fact that you are a very unprincipled libertarian.
If they start censoring dinosaur porn, then I'll really be pissed.
amazon has already been banning anti vax books for a little while
I honestly can't see the censorship happening here; I can only see the book has been rejected for self-publishing on KDP and an author with a clear political agenda is using this thing, negligible per-se, to push it even further.
For example, on his twitter feed he writes in response to another user with the nickname "Libraries Aren't Neutral": "Do you think non-leftist patrons have a place on your library?".
This is to me the hallmark of a person in bad faith that is using a minor nuisance (just use another publisher!) to push ideas to a group of persons that will stop to first impressions and shout censorship.
The remark on "libraries not neutral = libraries leftist" is also terrible:
- even if a leftist librarian decides not to sell your book, you have all right-wing librarians that will sell you, so why the fuss?
- it creates the strange association "left = lockdown : right = freedom"; this ignores lots of things, like how Sweden, a social democracy often the target of attacks from this political side, had pretty good results with no lockdown; or how in many countries, after initial disagreements, both political parts convened on the necessity of the lockdown because the situation granted it, but they were also quick to raise it when possible.
The one thing I have no respect for is the fact that these persons screaming censorship ignore that serious debate around lockdown measures is effectively happening, far from their cospirationist pamphlets; it's a measure with an heavy toll on economics and physical an emotional well-being of the population, and everyone would hate to enforce it again; however, at least here in Italy, we have the feeling things would have gotten terribly dire were it not for the 2 months of lock-down; we had now 30 days of reopenings, with only a few cautions like using masks in closed spaces, and the situation seems mostly in control.
Of course it's only a feeling: at the moment nobody I know of has proof that the lockdown was the only way to stop contagion; but I can't avoid being extremely skeptical of the raising movement of people absolutely certain that lockdown is a no-go in every circumstance, because I have absolutely no idea how they got the data and the insight to come to this conclusion so quickly when many are still counting bodies.
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 noble lie, but it destroys credibility and covers for the fact officials failed to prepare for the known threat of pandemics.
Whether you agree or not with the content of the book, censorship is pretty much always wrong. If we censored all history about the Nazi's and their ideology, we'd never be able to learn to avoid such atrocities.
A libertarian complaining about a private company choosing not to do business with them? Damn those big corporations and their... checks notes freedom to do business with who they choose?
It's gonna get flagged again, I can feel it. What I love about this place is everybody is so open minded.
It's ironic that an article that seeks to examine the subtle aspects of this situation, after hitting HN Top 10 and front page, gets FLAGGED as inappropriate (it's unflagged now, for the moment).
What is it about cognitive dissonance can't you handle? Only approved opinions allowed?
We should remember Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Ch...
Most people here on HackerNews are smart, educated, intelligent (probably in the upper IQ percentile) and perfectly able to decide for themselves what is good and bad.
HackerNews moderations and moderators are this suppressing speech of these people and imho this is anti free speech.
Can we start a petition for banning moderation on this website please.
I've noticed the group that has the significant dislike and distrust of authority figures, and tech companies in general, are the same people who more than happy at giving them carte blanche, gleefully encouraging these sorts of censorship systems.
The basic idea puts an incredible amount of trust in authority figures with systems that have almost no appeals process or transparency - unless of course you happen to be popular enough or stir up enough noise on the internet to get internet gatekeepers attention.
Merely debating whether it's good or bad to be censoring misinformation, while simultaneously glossing over the means, processes, and people being employed to enforce these broad post at megacorps is a giant disingenuous waste of time and riddled with contradictions.
Official sources are continuing to mess up, and causing more destruction than this book ever could. The Lancet is about as official as it gets: https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/article/s0140673620313246