From what I’ve heard, Amazon’s internal politics and culture has become as influenced by far left activism as the other big tech companies. This particular book ban is just the latest visible symptom of their bias. Like all other powerful institutions that have been taken over by ideologues, they cannot be trusted with the power they have. Moderate leftists, centrists, and conservatives should be highly cautious of the power wielded by big tech, as their viewpoints and culture will be the ones suppressed by these institutions’ authoritarian actions.

It is abominable that Amazom will not permit open discussions and diverse perspectives on controversial and highly debated issues like gender identity. The author of this now-banned book shared his perspective on the ban at https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/02/when-amaz.... It‘s not just this book either. Experts like Debra Soh have seen repeated bans and reinstatements of her book “The End of Gender” (https://mobile.twitter.com/DrDebraSoh/status/136464687930529...). Abigail Shrier, whose book “Irreversible” has also been subject to bans, wrote about the dangerous rise of corporate censorship recently, highlighting Amazon’s use of a vague “hate speech” policy (https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/book-banning-in-an-age-...). Ironically, for a company that claims to be customer focused, these bans are not the right thing for customers either since these books have been Amazon best sellers (https://notthebee.com/article/amazon-and-target-have-been-qu...).

It’s a sad change for a company that once had a strong stance against censoring books, as is tradition among bookshops, but this change of heart isn’t limited to books. Amazon has been increasingly and silently curating content from everything they own - whether it is AWS (which deplatformed Parler) or Prime Video (blocking documentaries that go against BLM narrative), or other things (see https://www.foxnews.com/media/amazon-cancel-censor-content-c...).