Daily Archives: March 9, 2021

What is censorship?

According to Websters Dictionary, to censor means to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable. The word censor originated in ancient Rome, where the government appointed officials to take the census and to supervise public morals. Censorship happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their political or moral values on others by suppressing words, images, or ideas that they find offensive.

A censor, traditionally, is an official whose job it is to examine literature, movies, or other forms of creative expression and to remove or ban anything she considers unsuitable. In this definition, censorship is something the government does. But censorship can also be accomplished very effectively by private groups.

Not all forms of censorship are illegal. When private individuals agitate to eliminate TV programs they dislike, or threaten to boycott the companies that support those programs with advertising dollars, they are certainly trying to censor artistic expression and interfere with the free speech of others. But their actions are perfectly legal; in fact, their protests are protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Not even all government censorship is unlawful. For example, we still have laws against obscenity in art and entertainment. These laws allow the government to punish people for producing or disseminating material about sex, if a judge or jury thinks the material is sufficiently offensive and lacks any serious value.

What is the basis for free expression in the United States?The First Amendment (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances) protects against government restrictions on or interference with the content of speech. The First Amendment applies to Government at the national, state, and local level.

Why should I care about censorship?Understanding of First Amendment freedoms is fragile and imperiled by increasingly effective and sophisticated attacks. In numerous communities, people are determined to impose their own narrow views on everyone else, and censor what they do not approve.The First Amendment exists to protect speech and activities that are unpopularif only those ideas which were popular were protected, it wouldnt be needed. Limiting free speech is unAmericanwithout it, all our rights and liberties quickly disintegrate.Censorship is an assault on the rights of all of us. We must continue to fight for the freedom to read, to see, to know, and to think for ourselves.

How can I fight back against censors in my community?Heres what you can do to organize locally.

Where can I get further information on censorship?For more information about censorship, here is a list of NCACs resources, or drop us an e-mail here.

Original post:
What is Censorship? - National Coalition Against Censorship

Watch the newCBSN Originalsdocumentary, "Speaking Frankly | Censorship," in the video player above.

Musician Joy Villa's red carpet dresses at the past three years' Grammy Awards were embellished with pro-Trump messages that cemented her as an outspoken darling of the conservative movement. With over 500,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, Villa refers to her social media community as her "Joy Tribe," and a few years ago she enlisted them to help wage a public battle against what she claimed was YouTube's attempt to censor her.

"I had released my 'Make America Great Again" music video on YouTube, and within a few hours it got taken down by YouTube," Villa told CBSN Originals. "I took it to the rest of my social media. I told my fans: 'Hey listen, YouTube is censoring me. This is unfair censorship.'"

Villa saw it as part of a pattern of social media companies trying to shut down conservative voices an accusation that many other like-minded users, including President Trump himself, have leveled against Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter in recent years.

But those who study the tech industry's practices say that deciding what content stays up, and what comes down, has nothing to do with "censorship.""There is this problem in the United States that when we talk about free speech, we often misunderstand it," said Henry Fernandez, co-chair of Change the Terms, a coalition of organizations that work to reduce hate online.

"The First Amendment is very specific: It protects all of us as Americans from the government limiting our speech," he explained. "And so when people talk about, 'Well, if I get kicked off of Facebook, that's an attack on my free speech or on my First Amendment right' that's just not true. The companies have the ability to decide what speech they will allow. They're not the government."

A YouTube spokesperson said Villa's video wasn't flagged over something she said, but due to a privacy complaint. Villa disputed that, but once she blurred out the face of someone who didn't want to be seen in the video, YouTube put it back online, and her video remains visible on the platform today.

"At YouTube, we've always had policies that lay out what can and can't be posted. Our policies have no notion of political affiliation or party, and we enforce them consistently regardless of who the uploader is," said YouTube spokesperson Alex Joseph.

While Villa and others on the right have been vocal about their complaints, activists on the opposite side of the political spectrum say their online speech frequently ends up being quashed for reasons that have gotten far less attention.

Carolyn Wysinger, an activist who provided Facebook feedback and guidance about minority users' experience on the platform, told CBSN Originals that implicit bias is a problem that permeates content moderation decisions at most social media platforms.

"In the community standards, white men are a protected class, the same as a black trans woman is. The community standards does not take into account the homophobia, and the violence, and how all those things intersect. It takes all of them as individual things that need to be protected," said Wysinger.

The artificial intelligence tools that automate the process of moderating and enforcing community standards on the sites don't recognize the intent or background of those doing the posting.

For instance, Wysinger said, "I have been flagged for using imagery of lynching. ... I have been flagged for violent content when showing images about racism and about transphobia."

According to the platforms' recent transparency reports, from April to June 2020, nearly 95% of comments flagged as hate speech on Facebook were detected by AI; and on YouTube 99.2% of comments removed for violating Community Standards were flagged by AI.

"That means you're putting these community standards in place and you have these bots who are just looking for certain specific things. It's automated. It doesn't have the ability for nuanced decision-making in regards to this," said Wysinger.

Biases can be built into the algorithms by the programmers who designed them, even if it's unintentional.

"Unfortunately tech is made up of a homogenous group, mostly White and Asian males, and so what happens is the opinions, the experiences that go into this decision-making are reflective of a majority group. And so people from different backgrounds Black, Latino, different religions, conservative, liberal don't have the accurate representation that they would if these companies were more diverse," said Mark Luckie, a digital strategist who previously worked at Twitter, Reddit and Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he believes the platform "should enable as much expression as possible," and that social media companies "shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online."

Nonetheless, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults believe social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints. In the last two years, two congressional hearings have focused on the question of tech censorship.

"We hear that there is an anti-conservative bias on the part of Facebook or other platforms because conservatives keep saying that," said Susan Benesch, executive director of the Dangerous Speech Project, an organization based in Washington D.C. that has advised Facebook, Twitter, Google and other internet companies on how to diminish harmful content online while protecting freedom of speech.

But she adds, "I would be surprised if that were the case in part because on most days the most popular, most visited groups on Facebook and pages on Facebook are very conservative ones."

She said she also finds it interesting that "many conservatives or ultra-conservatives complain that the platforms have a bias against them at the same time as Black Lives Matter activists feel that the platforms are disproportionately taking down their content."

A 2019review of over 400 political pages on Facebook, conducted by the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters, found conservative pages performed about equally as well as liberal ones.

But reliable data on the subject is scarce, and social media platforms are largely secretive about how they make decisions on content moderation.

Amid ongoing criticism, Facebook commissioned an independent review, headed by former Republican Senator Jon Kyl, to investigate accusations of anti-conservative bias. Kyl's 2019report detailed recommendations to improve transparency, and Facebook agreed to create an oversight board for content removal decisions. Facebook said it "would continue to examine, and where necessary adjust, our own policies and practices in the future."

According to Fernandez, the focus should be on requiring tech companies to publicly reveal their moderation rules and tactics.

Benesch points out, "We have virtually zero oversight regarding take-down, so in truth content moderation is more complicated than just take it down or leave it up," referring to the fact that, to date, there has been little publicly available data provided by tech companies to allow an evaluation of the process.

"Protecting free expression while keeping people safe is a challenge that requires constant refinement and improvement. We work with external experts and affected communities around the world to develop our policies and have a global team dedicated to enforcing them," Facebook said in a statement.

And a statement from Twitter said, "Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules. In fact, from a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to keep all voices on the service."

Meanwhile users like Wysinger struggle with mixed feelings about social media sites that promise connection but sometimes leave them out in the cold.

"Whether we like it or not, we are all on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter all day long, and when they take us off the banned list, I don't know anyone who doesn't post a status on Facebook right away, after the ban is lifted: 'I'm back y'all!'," said Wysinger.

"It's like an abusive relationship, you can't even leave the abusive relationship because you become so used to and dependent on it."

Link:
Censorship on social media? It's not what you think - CBS News

by: Wes Wilson, Faith Castle, John Engel

AUSTIN (KXAN) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is leaning into a rallying cry of conservatives: something must be done to stop social media companies from censoring political views.

Abbott held a news conferenceFriday regardinghis legislative proposal to ban social media platforms from censoring Texans. Abbott says too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech.

Abbott joined Sen. Bryan Hughes in Tyler, Texas to discussSenate Bill 12.

Conservative speech will not be cancelled in the state of Texas, Abbott said. (This bill) would allow any Texan who has been cancelled, censored or de-platformed to file a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook or any of these other companies.

In his bill, Hughes said social media platforms are akin to common carriers like cell phone or cable companies. and have enjoyed governmental support in the United States. He says the bill will protect Texans and allow them to get back online quickly should a social media company punish them for expressing a viewpoint based on their religious beliefs or political leanings.

Just like AT&T cant cut off my cell service becausethey dont like a conversation were having, these folks should not be given that power, Sen. Hughes said. We cant let them abuse it like they have been.

Abbott tweeted that doing so is un-American, Un-Texan, & soon to be illegal.

I am joining @SenBryanHughes to announce a bill prohibiting social media companies from censoring viewpoints.

Too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech.

It's un-American, Un-Texan, & soon to be illegal.https://t.co/zSdirRa1pj

Conservatives have grown increasingly frustrated with social media companies in the wake of the presidential election.

In light of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol in January, many social media companies including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have banned people who have tried to cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election.

That includes former President Donald Trump who has tried to falsely claim that he won the election and was only denied due to widespread voter fraud. Numerous courts with judges that President Trump appointed failed to find any widespread voter fraud that could have changed the election.

Joshua Tucker, co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University, said its impossible to know whether one side of the political spectrum is being censored more than the other by social media companies because those companies dont provide access to outside researchers.

The data that we need to answer this and many other pressing public policy questions is being produced by Facebook and Google, he said.

A Pew Research poll conducted in 2020 found that three-quarters of American adults, including 90% of Republicans, believe that it is very or somewhat likely that social media companies censor political viewpoints.

Read this article:
Gov. Abbott holds news conference on bill to prohibit social media censorship - KXAN.com

Austin, TX, 20 hours ago With the support of Governor Greg Abbott, some lawmakers in the Texas legislature want to challenge the ability of big tech companies to censor individuals for posts expressing their beliefs or opinions.

Senate Bill (SB) 12, filed by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), aims to open the door for censored or deplatformed users to sue social media platforms to be allowed to express their viewpoints.

Hughes says that the legislation threads a needle to work around Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act of 1996, which shields online platforms from liability for censoring user content, especially of an obscene nature.

These sites need to moderate content like violent or overtly sexual posts. However, they cannot deny you participation based on your viewpoint, including your political preferences or religion, said Hughes in the bills analysis.

Instead of broadly banning all censorship, SB 12 specifically prohibits the censorship of a user, a users expression, or a users ability to receive the expression of another person based on [. . .] the viewpoint of the user or another person.

The prohibition also applies to censorship based on the viewpoint of a post or on a users geographic location in any part of Texas.

Though a user can sue to be allowed back on the platform and cover the cost of attorneys fees, the bill stops short of allowing courts to fine companies for the censorship because of the liability shield in Section 230.

The bill was heard in the Senate State Affairs Committee, chaired by Hughes, on Monday.

At that time, a committee substitute was accepted that defines social media platform, and creates a new section that would require platforms to have a clearly established process of investigating complaints of censorship violations within 24 hours of a users complaint.

Remarkably, these tech giants will reflexively bend the knee to woke-ism and even the Chinese Communist Party, yet they cannot muster the courage to tolerate online speech that questions their narrow and misguided world view, said Hughes in a press release. Big Tech is about to learn that Texans are a free and independent people, and we are not accustomed to yielding to bullies.

Texas is not the first state with lawmakers aiming to push back against social media companies for censorship that culminated in January with the mass deplatforming of then-President Donald Trump near the end of his term.

At the beginning of February, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis alongside his states top lawmakers announced support for similar legislation that aims to stop censorship.

At a press conference in Tyler last week, Abbott touted the legislation.

With SB 12, Senator Hughes is taking a stand against Big Techs political censorship and protecting Texans right to freedom of expression. I look forward to working with Senator Hughes to sign this bill into law and protect free speech in Texas, said the governor.

Both Abbott and Hughes have likened social media platforms to a modern public square, different from other private businesses.

But opponents of the legislation contend that it is precisely because social media platforms are private businesses that Hughes legislation is doomed to failure in the courts.

Steve DelBianco, the president and CEO of tech lobbying firm NetChoice, appeared at the hearing on Monday to testify against the legislation.

NetChoice members include a wide range of big-name tech companies, such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and TikTok.

DelBianco disputed the town square argument and contended that tech companies greater defense against increased regulatory checks on censorship was not with Section 230, but with the First Amendment.

He pointed to a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a lawsuit from the conservative non-profit media organization Prager University against YouTube, which concluded that despite YouTubes ubiquity and its role as a public facing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment.

[W]hile almost all speech is protected from governmental censorship, private digital spaces that host public speech present a novel challenge, said Hughes in the bills analysis. Although these sites are privately owned, the nearly universal adoption of a few sites has created a need for protection from speech selection by social media companies.

In addition to Hughes, the bill has seven other joint authors: Sens. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels), Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham), Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound), Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown), and Drew Springer (R-Muenster).

A companion bill has not yet been filed in the Texas House of Representatives.

See the original post here:
Texas Governor, Lawmakers Push for Big Tech Censorship Regulations - The Texan

Rodger Whitney| New Bern

I was wrong about censorship being just one step lower than murder. It is worse than murder.

The destruction of an idea or body of work that could potentially live for centuries is unacceptable. Now, those who would rewrite history, hide what we were, hide the attitudes that have brought us to this point in time so they do not have to look at the good, the bad and the ugly of humankind's existence have attacked Dr. Seuss.

Over time, attacks on Mark Twain and other classic writers as well as artists and statues have been tolerated. We cannot allow censorship, the greatest threat to a free America, to continue.

Whether by social media persuading people not to view or use products and images and books, or by the removal of artworks, statues or books from a library, Censorship threatens truth...and the ability to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Slavery was a mistake. It is a mistake that has existed with Whites owning Whites, Whites owning other races, Africans owning Africans...a mistake that continues now with sex trades and other equally bad situations. We cannot learn from these mistakes if we do not know them.

We cannot learn about our country if we do not know, acknowledge and understand the struggles of the Civil War, the good of those who tried to end domestic slavery.

We cannot learn about music, art, literature and freedom of the press if censorship is allowed.

Write or e-mail your state and federal legislators. Write and email the business giants that threaten free expression...and contact the publishers of Dr. Seuss and let them know that knuckling under pressure sends a very bad message.

A free country cannot be without uncensored free expression.

Rodger Whitney

New Bern

See the original post here:
Letter to the editor: Censorship threatens the truth - New Bern Sun Journal

Editors note: The death of Rush Limbaugh, the growth of Newsmax and charges of censorship by Amazon and other book sellers are among the forces shaking up conservative media companies. In this three-part series, the Deseret News examines the challenges facing radio, television and book publishing, and how those challenges might affect the companies and you: the reader, listener and viewer.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley lost a book deal. Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling lost fans. And now, even as a prospective merger of two large publishing houses in the U.S. is rattling the industry, Amazon is deleting content it deems offensive from the worlds largest platform for book sales.

In this tumultuous landscape, can conservative authors still continue to speak freely and sell books?

Yes, publishers say, but they may have to change the way they do business in a culture newly cognizant of the power to cancel people with unpopular opinions.

We dont let it directly determine what we publish, but the fact is, with every book, there is always fear that the book is going to be pulled. The authors feel very vulnerable, said David Bernstein, publisher of Bombardier Books, a conservative imprint of Post Hill Press.

Conservative fears were realized this month when the book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, by Catholic scholar Ryan T. Anderson, vanished from the Amazon website three years after it was published.

Four Republican senators, including Utahs Mike Lee, called the action political censorship, saying in a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos that Amazon has openly signaled to conservative Americans that their views are not welcome on its platforms.

But the controversy over Andersons book is only the latest action troubling conservative writers and publishers. Others include the cancellation of a forthcoming Hawley book critical of technology companies by Simon & Schuster, protests against a new book by Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson, and an open letter signed by people in the publishing industry who say no one affiliated with former President Donald Trumps administration should get a book contract.

The tremors shaking book publishing usually go undetected by the public, since the average reader only pays attention to the book, its content and the author, not the company that publishes a book, said Thomas Spence, who became president and publisher of Regnery Publishing a year ago.

Regnery, founded in 1947, has published books by Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Malkin and Dennis Prager, among other conservatives well acquainted with controversy. Regnerys success was a major reason that the largest publishing houses in the U.S. established their own conservative imprints, publishing insiders say.

But the outcry against authors who express unpopular beliefs is growing louder in the environment known as cancel culture, and some writers are warning that recent events will effectively muzzle conservatives. The backlash to Amazons decision, however, suggests that the outlook for conservative publishing is still bright. Heres why.

Andersons book, described by author Rod Dreher as a well-written, scientifically informed critique of gender ideology by a leading Catholic public intellectual, is still for sale on the website of the publisher, Encounter Books, as well as on the Barnes & Noble website and other places online.

Anderson, who recently became president of the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., told Dreher, writing for The American Conservative, that he has sold a couple of thousand books in the past week, adding this is unheard of for a three-year-old book.

He noted that Amazons action came at the same time Congress was considering the Equality Act and suggested that Amazons action has a silver lining, which is this could be (the) further catalyst thatll interrupt the libertarian slumber of many conservatives and prompt them to think critically about what, for example, the natural law says about both the justification of and limits to economic liberties.

Author Abigail Shrier is not as optimistic. Shrier, a journalist whose book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, has been removed twice from the Target website, wrote that the Amazon case is dangerous because of the outsized influence the company wields in publishing.

As a direct result of Amazons action, many outstanding books will now go unwritten; they will not be commissioned whenever Amazons distribution is the slightest bit in doubt. As I write this, authors are being dropped by agents or politely refused representation, based on what the agents now know Amazon will not carry, Shrier wrote.

Shriers book, however, is still listed on Amazon, as is God and the Transgender Debate, an examination of what the Bible has to say about gender by Southern Baptist theologian Andrew T. Walker.

So is a take on Andersons book, Let Harry Become Sally, an e-book by Kelly R. Novak that Amazon billed last week as a #1 best seller.

Amazon has not given a specific reason for removing Andersons book, saying only that the company reserves the right to delist content that violates its standards.

In an email, Anderson said this could be a moment that determines how the company will operate going forward. If Amazon hears from enough people, perhaps that will lead it to reconsider its decision and not just on me, but also preventing future de-platforming. If Amazon gets away with this, itll likely lead to more de-platforming in the future.

While Anderson can only speculate about the reasons his book is no longer on Amazon, Hawley, the Missouri senator, knows why Simon & Schuster canceled his book contract because the company put out a statement. Without giving specifics, the publisher said that Hawley, a Trump supporter who was the first senator to say he would challenge the 2020 election results, had a role in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints; at the same time, we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom, the statement said.

Hawleys book deal was canceled the day after the riot. The next week, more than 250 authors, editors, agents and other workers in publishing signed an open letter that said no companies should publish work by anyone who incited, suborned, instigated or otherwise supported the riot, or who was a participant in the Trump administration. The number of signers is now approaching 600.

But within two weeks, Hawley had another publisher in Regnery, and Spence explained the decision in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, in which he said cancel culture is more appropriately described as blacklisting.

Not so long ago, publishing professionals would have been horrified to be accused of it. Today they compete to see who can proclaim his blacklist with the fiercest invective, Spence wrote.

So far, Amazon hasnt been inclined to cancel Hawleys book; its accepting pre-orders for The Tyranny of Big Tech and gives a release date of May 4.

Spence said hed been following Hawleys career knew he was a Yale Law School graduate and was a former Supreme Court clerk and had thought it would be nice to have a book from him before this one essentially landed in his lap. A lot of people have sent me emails saying, Oh, youre so courageous, thanks for taking a stand and taking this book, and I have to blush. I think I did the right thing, but I dont know that it was particularly courageous in this case, he said.

Getting canceled by Simon & Schuster has raised the profile of the book a lot, he added.

That has happened before, said Bernstein of Bombardier Books. When Simon & Schuster canceled a book by Milo Yiannopoulos in 2017, the far-right commentator self-published Dangerous and sold upwards of 100,000 copies, Bernstein said.

Donald Trump Jr. also self-published his second book, Liberal Privilege.

Bernstein said that conservative imprints such as Center Street at Hachette Book Group or Sentinel at Penguin are ghettos within the largest publishing houses, which he said skew young and liberal. The problem with conservative books within the large publishing houses is that theyre not going to support you if there is any controversy. The first whiff of controversy, Josh Hawley gets his book canceled. The first whiff of controversy, (Florida GOP Congressman) Matt Gaetz gets his book canceled. The editors get fired or get shifted around. Or the imprint gets closed. All of these things are happening at an increasing pace right now.

The New York Times recently reported that longtime editor Kate Hartson, editorial director at Center Street, had been let go and that Hartson told colleagues she thought her termination was because of her political beliefs. She had published books by Donald Trump Jr., Newt Gingrich, radio host Michael Savage and Rand Paul, among others. Her most recent book was reported to be Unmasked: Inside Antifas Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, by Andy Ngo.

Not every objection to an author results in a book being canceled. When Penguin Random House Canada announced that it was publishing Jordan Petersons Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, the company had to hold a town-hall style meeting for employees who were upset about the decision. It was published anyway. (In the U.S., the book was released March 2 under Penguins Portfolio imprint.)

And some authors, like J.K. Rowling, have the benefit of being too successful to be truly canceled, Bernstein said. Her position in publishing is kind of untouchable. When you make up that much of a companys bottom line shes like a line item of her own on their balance sheet no company is going to release her and give up that revenue.

For many conservative authors, however, the fear of being de-platformed is real, whether it be on a sales platform or social media.

Frankly, the number of books that get pulled off of Amazon is infinitesimal, but these stories get magnified and people are rightly concerned, because the number of people being de-platformed on Twitter started off being very small, too, Bernstein said.

Small conservative imprints such as Bombardier may benefit from the current environment if authors seek publishers who share their views. But so may Regnery, whose namesake, the late Henry Regnery, published Memoirs of a Dissident Publisher in 1979.

Spence, whose conservative views were shaped when he read The Conservative Mind by the late Russell Kirk, welcomes the business, although he realizes that this may be a particularly vulnerable moment for conservative publishers.

Certain big players in the publishing world have the power to make our business very difficult if they want to. Thats Amazon and Google, all the people targeted by Josh Hawleys book, and maybe Im stupid to be publishing a book punching them in the nose, Spence said.

If we couldnt sell our books on Amazon, that would be a pretty serious blow. We sell most of our books on Amazon. What they have done on rare occasions is make it more difficult for people to find our books. He cited Shriers book, which Regnery published. The company wanted to buy ads that would make the book more prominent in searches, but Spence said that Amazon would not let them buy ads for that book.

Spence is also cognizant of the power of Facebook and Twitter, and that social media platforms could also take action to block promotion of one of his authors or books.

Theres a lot of potential hazards on the road ahead, he said. But its also good times for Regnery, because theres no such thing as bad publicity. Controversy is good.

Read the original here:
Is Amazon allowed to censor conservative books? - Deseret News