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Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by onewhonknocks on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:27PM (#19391960)
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?

Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by maxxxxx on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:32PM (#19392019)
In theory yes but if a private institution has a lot of market power like amazon has they can effectively shape the public discourse with their censorship. Which indicates to me that big operations are dangerous for democracy.
Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by tanilama on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:35PM (#19392066)
Then maybe we should cancel big television or news networks.

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.

Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by lovehashbrowns on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:41PM (#19392139)
Amazon doesn't sell Nazi flags. Is that censorship, and does that keep such flags from public discourse?
Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by educationdata on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:37PM (#19392086)
You are making a straw-man argument. Nobody here is claiming Amazon should be forced to sell a Book. The concern is whether it is a right thing for Amazon to do, not whether Amazon has the Right to do it.
Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by clucas on Thursday March 14, 2019 @03:03PM (#19392401)
Here is what the grandparent comment said:

> 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

Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by mikeq101101 on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:47PM (#19392209)
Of course they should be able to, but that's not what OP asked.
Re:Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’ by mikeq101101 on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:55PM (#19392313)
Sorry, I misread OP. People treat "should do" and "should be able to do" frequently as the same thing in these cases (Twitter and "free speech" is another such case).