Remember when America was all about freedom of speech? It didn’t matter where we landed on the political spectrum. There was a simple answer to everything: agree to disagree.
Now, it seems that companies want to censor those who have something different to say. If you don’t have the same views as they do, they’ll censor you.
Facebook and Twitter have gotten into the habit of silencing members of the GOP.
YouTube has chosen to censor Christian organizations that want to speak out against abortion.
Amazon doesn’t want to be outdone. They want in on the censoring movement, too. Deleting Parlor wasn’t enough. Now, they want to take away the voices of authors.
Amazon wants to be clear: they’re all in for the transgender movement.
Fantastic, glad they were able to establish that. Yeah for them.
The problem is that they also want to establish that they’ll destroy anyone who isn’t in favor of the transgender movement.
Whoa…we have freedom of speech. We have freedom of press. Shouldn’t a book be able to stay published regardless of where the author’s views lie?
One would think, but Amazon has chosen to remove a bestselling book because it speaks against the transgender movement.
Ryan T. Anderson published a book in 2018 called “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.” It became an immediate bestseller across all platforms, including Amazon.
Anderson was a Heritage Foundation research fellow when the book was published. He’s since gone on to become the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Amazon decided that enough was enough. They removed the links to both the Kindle e-book version and the hard copy version of Anderson’s book.
I hope you’ve already bought your copy, cause Amazon just removed my book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” from their cyber shelves…. my other four books are still available (for now). https://t.co/cnMGZV1L0A
— Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) February 21, 2021
Ryan T. Anderson made it known that Amazon took his book down by tweeting about it. He also made the comment that his other four books “are still available (for now).”
Anyone and everyone can have an opinion. Anyone and everyone should be allowed to express that opinion. Anderson isn’t just someone off the street to write a book, either. He’s well-educated on the topic of the transgender movement. And he has concerns that deserve a voice.
Within the book, Anderson made the claim that children who experience gender dysphoria are being poorly served by being given medical treatments such as hormone replacements and puberty blockers.
What about therapy? What about waiting to see if a child grows out of the dysphoria?
Anderson argues that research has proven that 80 to 95 percent of children suffering from gender dysphoria outgrow it. Their mental health doesn’t suddenly improve because they undergo sexual reassignment surgery.
Gender dysphoria doesn’t belong in the transgender movement. It needs to be attributed to the mental health crisis of America.
Many conservatives are concerned about Amazon’s move to suddenly block the book two years after being published simply because they don’t like the views being portrayed.
Hey @JeffBezos, why will you let Americans read Hitler on his Kampf, but not let us read @RyanTAnd on gender ideology and transgenderism? https://t.co/9pM19LXArd
— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) February 21, 2021
As Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University tweeted, “We need to make clear to the oligarchs at places like Amazon that trying to make dissenting ideas inaccessible is intolerable and won’t work.”
We need to make clear to the oligarchs at places like Amazon that trying to make dissenting ideas inaccessible is intolerable and won’t work. If Amazon blacklists a book, buy it from another seller or directly from the publisher. But buy it. And read it.https://t.co/VwstXyRF8j https://t.co/1OzYLHqTZy
— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) February 21, 2021
He goes on to recommend that when Amazon blacklists a book, it needs to be purchased from another seller or even directly from the publisher. More importantly, it needs to be read since it contains views that Amazon wants to keep away from Americans.
I hope this is a mistake @amazon. If not, then it’s absurd and unacceptable. https://t.co/d9DEb9YQly
— David French (@DavidAFrench) February 22, 2021
Amazon didn’t even bother to let Anderson know that his book was removed. Most authors are notified when their book is taken down with a reason. They’re given ways to correct the errors in order to be re-published.
Anderson only found out because people were trying to buy the book and could not find it.
Amazon’s decisions are yet another example of Big Tech trying to overstep the bounds of Americans’ constitutional rights. They cannot continue to push their views on political, medical, and transgender debates to the point that they mute views that go against their own.
