Amazon Pulls Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’
WHY THIS IS CENSORSHIP<p>I am seeing numerous comments claiming this is not censorship when it most definitely is. From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Censorship" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Censorship</a><p>&gt; Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or &quot;inconvenient&quot;. Censorship can be conducted by a government, private institutions, and corporations.<p>From Merriam-Webster (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.merriam-webster.com&#x2F;dictionary&#x2F;censorship" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.merriam-webster.com&#x2F;dictionary&#x2F;censorship</a>), where there is no mention of &#x27;censorship&#x27; being a government-specific concept:<p>&gt; the institution, system, or practice of censoring<p>From Oxford (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.oxforddictionaries.com&#x2F;definition&#x2F;censorship" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.oxforddictionaries.com&#x2F;definition&#x2F;censorship</a>), where again there is no mention of &#x27;censorship&#x27; being a government-specific concept:<p>&gt; The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.<p>We know Amazon is a private corporation. That&#x27;s irrelevant, as such actions are censorship regardless. So please stop repeating the false claim that this isn&#x27;t censorship because Amazon can do whatever it wants as a private entity.<p>WHY FREE SPEECH MATTERS<p>Proponents of free speech are pro free speech as a general concept and principle, beyond what protections are afforded under American law today. The idea of free speech predates the existence of the United States. Free speech is hugely valuable to defend, because what society finds acceptable or unacceptable is very much subjective and changes with time&#x2F;location&#x2F;culture&#x2F;setting&#x2F;leadership&#x2F;etc. Having an open exchange of ideas is good and necessary for the long-term health and stability of society. Furthermore, making available ideas that challenge current understanding is necessary if we care about being a collectively truth-seeking society.<p>Free societies are durable over the long term when they protect these rights at all times, for all people, for all ideologies. As a rule of thumb, if the speech in question is not advocating for direct physical violence, it should be permitted. Getting into the business of censoring indirect or non-physical harm (and similarly, judging what is scientific&#x2F;pseudo-scientific&#x2F;unscientific) is a huge slippery slope. We could frame virtually any idea as having some downstream negative externality and suggest that it should be disallowed. For example, capitalism, socialism, and communism could all be attacked in this manner. Should books on those topic be dropped?<p>On the topic of health: our current scientific understanding is not bulletproof. It may never fully be. Look at how much our understanding of what constitutes a healthy diet has changed, just over the last 100 years of human existence. During that time, various individuals (e.g. scientists), companies, governments (via agencies like the FDA), and other institutions expressed high-degrees of confidence in beliefs that went on to be disproved over time. It would be a mistake to only allow ideas with broad scientific consensus <i>today</i>. People should be allowed to decide for themselves which institutions and parties and ideas to trust, and to what extent. Large platforms (privately-owned or otherwise) should not get in the way of that access if we want to maintain liquidity of information exchange.<p>WHY PRIVATE PLATFORMS&#x27; CENSORSHIP IS CONCERNING<p>Large privately-owned platforms carry so much discourse across today&#x27;s society, that censorship and deplatforming in those spaces has the same impact as governmental censorship, for most intents and purposes. Even if these corporations do not constitute what we might traditionally call a &quot;monopoly&quot;, they control a large-enough share of traffic to have significant impact when they take artificial actions. That sizable impact is exactly why they are being targeted (not just on this topic but others) by activists or other agents pushing for deplatforming&#x2F;censorship favorable to their causes.<p>The big risk is this: when only a few entities funnel so much societal discourse or control our communication infrastructure or process payments, those entities making arbitrary decisions about who they serve has similar impacts&#x2F;risks to the government imposing similar restrictions through the law. These companies should not act as a thought police and should not impose their own personal governance above what is minimally required by the law. Nor should they rely on the judgment of an angry mob to make decisions.