Dangerous, anti-science literature was on the top of their own charts, and ignoring that has moral implications. Amazon has decided indulging populist fervor and the "wisdom of crowds" does not rank higher than protecting general welfare where they have an influence.
(Think carefully. Most people will "want" to answer the seemingly-closely-related question "Why do you think these books are 'ignorance'?", but that is not the same question!)
I would completely agree with what you said about the rights of the private companies if Amazon was a regular market player. But even you qualified above statement. Even though Amazon is not really a monopoly, it is pretty close for small scale book selling. That is, it has such a dominant market share that its decision not to sell a book can be a death sentence for a small book publisher. Thus they should be super careful when culling titles by content -- next time they might pull <insert your favorite hot topic> and there will be no recourse either.
Why do you have to trust Amazon's assessment? You don't have to trust my assessment of anything, either. Nor I yours. So why are you debating whether or not you should trust Amazon's?
I don't agree with plenty of things corporations do. I'm confused on what point you're trying to make?
edit: This is a question if it's not clear. Please answer.
But it is not Amazon's duty to prepare such books in store just in case you want to assess ignorance level of certain works. They are tens of millions of books out there, are we going to blame search engine to not presented all of them to you in order to be, not biased, and supporting freedom of speech/expression/searchability? Probably not.
You’re under no obligation to accept science’s assessment of the facts. But if you choose to reject it, be ready to do a better job of making your case than the scientific community has done making theirs. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I also observe that the censorship frontier is moving quickly and taking a lot of ground in the past couple of years, and while I may not be forced to accept it today, the trend is heading strongly in a direction of yes, outright forcing me to accept a very Amazon-like decision about what should and should not be censored. It's strong enough that I feel it's acceptable for me to not just ignore these facts.
[1]: I mean this globally about Amazon's gestalt opinion, not this specific case. One of my kids is diagnosed autistic and the other has the doctor's scratching their heads and kinda headed in that direction, and my wife and I have both looked at the "autism community", and steered hard away from it. There's all sorts of things wrong in there, at least on the loudest side of it. While I have no specific knowledge of the books in question, my priors have no problem accepting the idea that they are full of stupid and dangerous advice.
Perhaps when not doing so would perpetuate the resurgence of a life-threatening disease that, until 20 years ago, was virtually eliminated in the US?
> each individual is subject to the ignorance of their time.
True. They are also subject to the responsibility to think rationally and use the provable, reproducible evidence at their disposal to make decisions. Especially when those decisions have life-or-death implications not only for their children, but others’ children as well.
These are not scientific. They are not necessary for historical purposes or archiving. They are purely malicious words made to ruin people’s lives for profit...
Private, yes, until it has been shown to harm the public good to do so.
Government, no, until it has been shown to harm the public good to not do so.
What Amazon said:
> Mr. Huseman also said in the letter that Amazon had conducted a review of anti-vaccination books and “found categorizations that were not consistent with our customers’ expectations.” The company, he said, was “actively working to resolve this.”
That is, Amazon doesn't want to piss off its customers. So basically they are in fact "indulging populist fervor and the 'wisdom of crowds'".
Edit: Here, Amazon is arguably pulling hazardous books. But I'm reminded how the tobacco industry accused its critics of promoting "junk science" and being "anti-science". As did many firms that were polluting the environment. And those who deny anthropogenic global climate change.
As we steamroll at full speed into the Brave New World, does any book, piece of art, or piece of literature that goes against current popular thought become "anti-science literature" and thus promoted for removal.
Plenty of people could make an argument that implementing communism is just good rational and logical policy and thinking, and anyone not wishing to do so is illogical, irrational, and anti-science, therefore we simply remove any literature relating to human freedom, free markets, or the constitution. Does that solve the problem?
How about books on biology that clearly make a distinction between male and female genders. When the political transgender movement becomes locked in, do we simply ban all books that expose two genders as "anti-science literature"?
Anti (preposition): opposed to, or against.
Science (noun): the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Literature (noun): books and writings published on a particular subject.
>As we steamroll at full speed into the Brave New World, does any book, piece of art, or piece of literature that goes against current popular thought become "anti-science literature" and thus promoted for removal.
No. It is not true that any book, piece of art or literature can or will be deemed "anti-science literature". It is also not true that Amazon's ability to curate its own platform - an ability it has always had, and has always shared with every private enterprise, and has, with all other platforms, exercised before, represents a dangerous precedent towards the wholesale societal censorship of everything that "goes against current thought." Further, it is not the case that the books in question merely represent "wrongthink," making their removal an example of such. And also, we are not steamrolling into the Brave New World.
Bringing up Brave New World, 1984 or Martin Niemoller's poem in on the internet should be considered signs of pseudointellectual poserdom.
>Plenty of people could make an argument that implementing communism is just good rational (...)
no.
We live in a society. Society is run by human beings capable of perceiving nuance and applying rationality and discretion to their decisions. The fact that an equivalence can be made, does not mean that all equivalences must be made. Amazon choosing to remove these books from their platform does not lead to the slippery slope of removing all literature related to human freedom, free markets and the constitution.
>How about books on biology that clearly make a distinction between male and female genders. (...)
Again: no.
Is the alternative that a merchant should be forced to carry a product against their will?
Nowadays, every one of them are not even pretending they are unbiased, how is that better than take down 2 books selling pseudo science? And do we need a democratic process to decide whether certain treatment is acceptable?
That smells suspiciously close to the anti-vaxxer argument.
> Should Amazon, or other intermediaries, be allowed such interferences?
It's not a strawman to read that, then ask:
> Shouldn't a merchant be able to decide for themselves which products they want to carry or not carry on their shelves (both physical and digital)?
> Is the alternative that a merchant should be forced to carry a product against their will?
edit: formatting
If they carried a surgery manual that told its readers that the proper procedure for a tonsillectomy involved removing the spleen, it would be wrong to sell it.
Refusing to sell a book that tells its readers that autism can be cured by drinking camel milk or bathing in chlorine dioxide is not wrong, it is the correct and moral stance.
If they sold a car repair manual that told its readers the proper way to fix a clogged fuel injector was to stuff bananas into the throttle body, I would expect that Amazon would refuse to sell it once it was brought to their attention.
I don't understand the cries of "censorship!"
They sell a ton of self-help books, ... if the advice isn't scientifically beneficial then do those books get dropped? Drinking camel milk is probably not harming people (unless they have an allergy/intolerance, but that's besides the point).
Do people with investing systems have to prove they work?
No, I don't want to see people harming themselves or their kids with bad advice.
Drinking camel milk with the presumption that it will cure cancer is comparatively harmful, given the end result as contrasted to actually being treated for cancer with medicine.
> Do people with investing systems have to prove they work?
The analogy in this case would be an investing system that provably does not work under even the most casual inspection, like "set your money on fire and bury the ashes and it will grow a money tree".
This curation was a part of the value the bookstore provided. Nobody ever demanded that they be forced to sell every single book in existence, or even that they explain why they did or didn't want to sell a particular book. Why should Amazon be any different?
If Joe Crackpot wants to sell his book online, he can make a website with a shopping cart and offer it for sale himself. He has no standing to demand Amazon's assistance in selling it.
Literally all intermediaries are making these decisions all the time. If I cook up some homemade ketchup in my bathtup, should I be able to force Giant to stock it on their shelves? Does Bloomingdale's have to stock their racks with whatever rags any aspiring fashionista sews together? Should Best Buy be forced to stock my homemade Fitbit that I soldered together in the garage?
No, of course not. They have people whose entire job it is to wade through all the available products and find the best ones to sell. There's nothing wrong with that.
In this case, one can make the case this is the right decision, but the same decision later on may result in the wrong decision.
Should they go against conspiracy theorists? JFK, whatever.
No, and it is beside the point. What you are asking for is that the government should order Amazon to sell snake oil.
Otherwise, curation is something that I'd definitely pay for, something consumers definitely want.
You'd like judges to be able to force merchants to stock specific books?
The world is full of shitty materials and content. Should Amazon, or other intermediaries, be allowed such interferences?
Has any judge ordered such material not to be sold?