
Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns - StuntPope
https://axisofeasy.com/aoe/amazon-spikes-book-on-covid-19-and-lockdowns-only-official-sources-permitted/
======
guscost
Official sources are continuing to mess up, and causing more destruction than
this book ever could. The Lancet is about as official as it gets:
[https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/article/s0140673620313246](https://www.thelancet.com/lancet/article/s0140673620313246)

~~~
reaperducer
_Official sources are continuing to mess up_

It's a new disease. That's why it has the word "novel" in its name. People are
working on it. Mistakes will always happen when dealing with unknowns, until
they're known. The difference is that The Lancet will be fixed, and isn't
making mistakes maliciously.

 _causing more destruction than this book ever could_

Not provable hyperbole.

~~~
guscost
It is ridiculous to assume that one group making mistakes is always operating
in good faith, while another group making mistakes is always operating in bad
faith. It is even more ridiculous to _censor_ one group because of this
assumption.

------
GhostVII
It looks like the rejection email was from Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct
Publishing). So Amazon isn't refusing to sell the book, just refusing to
publish it, from my understanding. That seems like a much less significant
issue if that is the case - there are lots of alternative publishers to
Amazon, so it is less concerning if they have more strict standards, since you
could just go through another publisher and sell on Amazon through them.

------
pen2l
After a half hour long conversation with my neighbor last week of him trying
to convince me that Bill Gates is behind coronavirus, please, for the love of
our future, continue banning information that is blatantly put up on a bad
faith basis.

It's exhausting to see my mom and dad succumb to a new conspiracy every other
day. I don't see how else we can curb this other than for the tech companies
to start aggressively moderating, just like how HN is moderated.

~~~
rjkennedy98
Wow...just wow. The only way to deal with people having bad ideas is
censorship? Seriously?

What about improving education, building functional (and trusted)
institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media?

It really bothers me that there is a group of people begging for corporate
overloads to control and think for the population. Its literally the opposite
of everything this country stands for.

~~~
tzs
> What about improving education, building functional (and trusted)
> institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media?

They do not work, because the time and cost to create and widely disseminate
falsehoods is much less than the time and cost to refute those falsehoods.

See "Firehose of falsehood" [1], which is an apt name for what happens now
thanks to the internet and social media greatly lowering the barriers to
getting information widely distributed.

As RAND researchers put it, "Don't expect to counter the firehose of falsehood
with the squirt gun of truth."

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood)

~~~
kelnos
> _They do not work, because the time and cost to create and widely
> disseminate falsehoods is much less than the time and cost to refute those
> falsehoods._

It's not about countering falsehoods, it's about giving people the tools to
think critically and not be duped by falsehoods in the first place.

~~~
tzs
Don't they already have those tools readily available?

People don't believe QAnon, or that Bill Gates created COVID-19 as part of his
secret plan to implant chips in everybody, or that 5G towers caused COVID-19,
or that the earth is flat, etc., because they do not have access to the tools
to find and critically evaluate the refutations of those idiotic beliefs.

All the necessary tools are readily available on the internet. But using them
takes more effort than they want to put in. And if they do put in the effort
to think critically about something they saw on social media, there are dozens
more to take its place.

The falsehoods can be designed to be entertaining and to appeal to the fears
and prejudices of their targets. This makes it easy for someone to get into it
because they can start out just for the entertainment. They aren't going to
seek out opposing views and critical evaluate them at that point because it is
just entertainment. Somewhere along the line, it changes from being just
entertainment to something they actually believe in.

------
entropyneur
I am all for private businesses' right to censor their platforms as they
please. But let's consider why they do so. Amazon and others aren't banning
"covid dissidents" because they are worried about people's health nor is it
because of some evil conspiracy. The reason is simple and obvious: because
they've determined it to be the best course of action PR-wise. Or in other
words, it's because what the public wants.

And _that_ is where it stars to rub me very, very wrong way. Just think about
it. Not only the average Joe knows exactly how this totally novel global
problem with a shit ton of unknown variables should be handled (that's par the
course). But he's so certain of his knowledge that he wants anyone trying to
voice a different opinion to get the treatment that was previously reserved
only for obvious dangerous crazies like the nazis. To me this is the empirical
proof that the slippery slope does exist, unfolding before our eyes.

~~~
_-o-_
And how average Joes form opinions on complex subjects? They don't.

Opinions are hammered into general public by a limited number of major media
platforms or independent influences.

~~~
js8
There is this logical error that comes with elitism. People are generally
simple, therefore must have been manipulated by a much smarter "center".

But what if opinions on complex subjects are instead formed as an emergent
phenomena of interactions of many humans?

It reminds me of Cartesian theatre, the idea that there has to be a central
place in the brain where "real decisions are made".

------
ncr
The book is back on amazon as of now
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089P216NP/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089P216NP/)

~~~
basic612
I wonder if this will be noted on the easy blog or on hacker news. It seems
that people are too caught up being outraged to notice. Comments made here
three hours ago about the book now being available on Amazon are buried under
piles of diatribes. Let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good
sanctimonious rant.

~~~
ponker
Amazon’s ban is a problem even if they reversed it due to publicity. It means
that this is going on even when you don’t hear about it.

~~~
basic612
Does stating that they will not offer for sale amount to a ban?

I wonder if Amazon would have reversed their original decision on more
detailed review, without the publicity you speak of. Are we sure that the blog
post or this discourse are the causes that effected the book being offered for
sale in the end?

I would have read the blog post and HN comments with less skepticism if there
was evidence that Amazon had continued to refuse to sell the book after
multiple submissions and signs of human / managerial interaction in the
process on their part.

------
oefrha
> and he’s even a Twitter blue check.

This line made me laugh. As if a Twitter blue check means anything at all.
Even used “even”.

Regarding the “censorship”, I’m not sure why anyone thinks Amazon as a
_publisher_ should just publish anything. They are not even close to being a
monopoly and there are a million other channels to publish.

------
dmix
Big Streisand effect on this one, I followed him in the past and noticed his
Twitter has exploded in followers/attention since Amazon censored his book.

I decided to read the book to see why it was so threatening and worthy of
Amazon crossing into such a dangerous line into censorship. And it was mostly
a milquetoast glorified blog post.

I also watched that stupid Plandemic video, which I never would have
otherwise, when I heard Google was deleting it from peoples _private_ data
backups.

Getting banned like this is a great way to get promotion.

~~~
floatingatoll
Top of the linked article says:

> _the bootlickers on Hackernews_

I skimmed and found a lot of inflammatory phrasing, so that was the end of it
for me.

~~~
dmix
I was referring to the book author:
[https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1268529570480824320](https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1268529570480824320)

I didn't read the post in question since I knew the gist already.

~~~
floatingatoll
Ah, apologies :(

------
lsy
Declining to sell a book in a store isn’t “censorship”. The author could
easily host the book on their own website. If the government forces them to
take it down, then it’s censorship.

~~~
wuliwong
This is technically incorrect. You might argue that censorship is commonly
understood to mean specifically government censorship. But censorship by
itself does not have to refer to the actions of the state.

~~~
nabla9
You have it completely backwards :)

It's is technically correct. Legally and conceptually censorship is defined
only as censorship done by the government.

Censorship is commonly understood to mean any kind of censoring or removing of
content.

~~~
nickff
Google Dictionary agrees with you, but Merriam-Webster, Brittanica and
Wikipedia disagree.

~~~
HideousKojima
Even the Google dictionary result doesn't say it's exclusive to governmental
action

------
dmwallin
If you are worried about a private company "censoring" your speech, you should
take this as a sign that you've allowed said company to get far too big.
Restricting private speech by increasing the reach of government to limit it
will only backfire in the end if your goal is freedom of speech.

The right approach for free speech is smaller companies AND smaller
government.

~~~
cousin_it
> _If you are worried about a private company "censoring" your speech, you
> should take this as a sign that you've allowed said company to get far too
> big._

That makes sense, but what if many private companies agree to censor
something? It doesn't have to be a shady deal in a smoke filled room, maybe
just everyone depends on advertisers, and advertisers don't want to be
associated with some message.

I think the right way is creating and popularizing spaces for speech that
don't lend themselves to censorship, but somehow mitigate the problems of non-
censorship, such as astroturfing. The internet is a wonderful foundation for
such spaces, we're very lucky, but there's a lot of work to do.

------
throwanem
I wonder why he hasn't used his freedom of speech to make the text of his
pamphlet freely available on his own website, instead of depending on a
publisher to carry it.

Granted, it would be harder to _monetize_ this speech, that way. He'd have to
find a payment provider, take payments directly, et cetera. But I don't see
why those ancillaries should detract from upholding a principle that clearly
means so much to him.

~~~
djsumdog
He's not asking a lot of money for it, and he put in the work. People still
gotta eat man. Maybe not this guy with his backing and work and I'm sure he
has plenty of money, but to answer your point, other people who have been
censored have released their materials for free. Take for example the book
"Nobody Died at Sandyhook"

~~~
throwanem
I mean, that guy ended up getting paid -$450,000, so...
[https://kutv.com/news/nation-world/nobody-died-at-sandy-
hook...](https://kutv.com/news/nation-world/nobody-died-at-sandy-hook-author-
must-pay-victims-dad-450000-jury-says)

------
guscost
Just a note that the book in question has been re-published:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089P216NP/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089P216NP/)

------
DenisM
Most things we consider “true” today were considered “false” right before they
became “true”.

We’re just not great at being selective when discarding things, so it’s best
to keep them around.

------
Sum_Guy
I do find it odd, looking back at the short history of the world dealing with
covid, that there has been no (that I'm aware of) institutional strategy in
combating a "novel" virus with a "novel" therapy (ie the off-label use of
existing pharmaceuticals) and the MSM is and has been poised to attack that
strategy and the small-scale, uncoordinated efforts when they discover them
happening.

If Covid-19 were a movie, the hero would have stumbled across a clever
combination of generic drugs that would turn the tide of global death. But
here in reality, any such efforts are vilified and attacked for no coherent
(but seemingly organized) reason.

------
zpeti
First they came for controversial right wing views... then they came for Covid
“disinformation”...

Putting the joke aside, I really think we are starting to see that once this
door opens, it will only get worse. The pressure will increase to ban books
and it will happen, whether or not it’s controversial or disinformation or
whatever.

I can only hope this will be enough of a market opportunity that someone else
can build a business to rival things like amazon.

~~~
Karunamon
That will be terribly difficult given that payment processors are also on this
ideological censorship train. I think there might be a valid argument as to a
single seller refusing to sell something, but once you get three credit card
companies towing that line, that's pretty much unavoidable unless you go to
crypto (which eliminates most customers).

------
Apocryphon
There's a lot of issues at play here- what constitutes censorship, the
monopolistic power of big tech platforms, how to address misinformation. I
suspect the root cause is that we live in an extremely segmented information
society now, modern life is incredibly complex and self-filtered information
bubbles very easy to fall into. Echoing some of the comments, the Streisand
effect will only disseminate misinfo and disinfo further, and create a martyr
effect that self-defeatingly amplifies the power of the content being
suppressed.* But there's really no other good options either. We live in an
age where one set of facts will only be countered by a different set of
opposing facts, a different list of footnotes and sources, all tailored for
that opposite opinion. No one really has time to check all of the links
anymore. So much of society simply rests on blind faith on one's own set of
experts and gurus. The polarized environment renders your opposite experts
into dupes, liars, or agents of shadowy powers, worthy of the worst insults.
"Education" doesn't really help fight misconception or conspiracy theories
because any inconvenient fact is easily rejected as propaganda by your
enemies.

* Though not in all cases. In some cases de-platforming has been very effective [https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming...](https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming-alex-jones/)

How does this apply to tech specifically? Amidst this climate of post-truth
and truthiness, the big tech platforms have become de facto gatekeepers,
guardians of public truth. Something they neither are capable of being, nor
should they be. In a healthy civilization, the government, businesses, _and_
civil society should all have roles to play in promoting harmony and fostering
understanding. But we've somehow let the infection of division and ignorance
take root, so here we are.

On the flip side, something I was thinking about regarding the recent
Facebook/Twitter controversies and policing or not policing the president's
speech: how is it really different from '90s AOL chat rooms or '00s vBulletin
message boards having TOS that forbid certain types of inflammatory, hateful,
or otherwise objectionable content? Why was everyone fine with those
supposedly "anti-free speech" or "unconstitutional" policies in past decades?
Was it simply a matter of scale? Those platforms and online communities were
smaller so fewer people got mad about them? Because for a long time, people
posting on the internet simply accepted that there is no absolute free speech
anywhere, even if they hated the mods.

------
762236
This use of the verb 'spike' does not conform to any definition I found in the
dictionary. Is it commonly used this way?

~~~
reaperducer
Yes. It's very common, especially in publishing and media circles. It's also
in the dictionary that's built-in to macOS.

------
code4tee
There’s a difference between censorship and a book publisher deciding they
don’t want to publish or sell a book.

This appears to be a case of the later. He’s free to print and distribute his
book, but no private company is under any obligation to help him in that
endeavor.

~~~
millettjon
Once they publisher reaches near monopoly status this is censorship.

~~~
stusmall
What? I'd be shocked if Amazon even published a majority of books sold. There
is no way they are monopoly or even close. I looked and couldn't find reliable
stats on it. Does anyone else have any?

~~~
nickff
A majority by number of unique titles, or by sales volume? I would not be
surprised to see Amazon publishing a very large fraction of 'long-tail'
(almost self-published) books, and these likely make up a large fraction of
all titles published.

------
JackFr
> So as a libertarian, it pains me to say, I would encourage and welcome anti-
> trust investigations into big tech platforms such as Amazon, Google,
> Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Apple.

What you mean to say is you’re not a libertarian.

You have a relationship with Amazon which previously consisted of voluntary,
mutually beneficial exchanges. Amazon determined the exchanges were no longer
beneficial and elected to stop. You wanted to continue, and so you invite the
full might of government to threaten to destroy Amazon (but not actually
destroy them cause then you wouldn’t get what you want.) You pull in Facebook
and Google and try to make a larger argument to obfuscate the fact that you
are a very unprincipled libertarian.

------
downerending
If they start censoring dinosaur porn, _then_ I'll really be pissed.

------
yters
amazon has already been banning anti vax books for a little while

------
albmoriconi
I honestly can't see the censorship happening here; I can only see the book
has been rejected for self-publishing on KDP and an author with a clear
political agenda is using this thing, negligible per-se, to push it even
further.

For example, on his twitter feed he writes in response to another user with
the nickname "Libraries Aren't Neutral": "Do you think non-leftist patrons
have a place on your library?".

This is to me the hallmark of a person in bad faith that is using a minor
nuisance (just use another publisher!) to push ideas to a group of persons
that will stop to first impressions and shout censorship.

The remark on "libraries not neutral = libraries leftist" is also terrible:

\- even if a leftist librarian decides not to sell your book, you have all
right-wing librarians that will sell you, so why the fuss?

\- it creates the strange association "left = lockdown : right = freedom";
this ignores lots of things, like how Sweden, a social democracy often the
target of attacks from this political side, had pretty good results with no
lockdown; or how in many countries, after initial disagreements, both
political parts convened on the necessity of the lockdown because the
situation granted it, but they were also quick to raise it when possible.

The one thing I have no respect for is the fact that these persons screaming
censorship ignore that serious debate around lockdown measures is effectively
happening, far from their cospirationist pamphlets; it's a measure with an
heavy toll on economics and physical an emotional well-being of the
population, and everyone would hate to enforce it again; however, at least
here in Italy, we have the feeling things would have gotten terribly dire were
it not for the 2 months of lock-down; we had now 30 days of reopenings, with
only a few cautions like using masks in closed spaces, and the situation seems
mostly in control.

Of course it's only a feeling: at the moment nobody I know of has proof that
the lockdown was the only way to stop contagion; but I can't avoid being
extremely skeptical of the raising movement of people absolutely certain that
lockdown is a no-go in every circumstance, because I have absolutely no idea
how they got the data and the insight to come to this conclusion so quickly
when many are still counting bodies.

------
Reedx
Never thought we'd see wide support for book restriction or censorship again.
Are people not reading history or considering the second order effects? Heck,
you don't even have to go back that far. Just look how badly "official
sources" handled Covid-19.

For example, remember what the official word was, even despite being a self-
contradiction: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. You may say
that's a noble lie, but it destroys credibility and covers for the fact
officials failed to prepare for the known threat of pandemics.

~~~
wwweston
> Remember what the official word was for all too long: masks don't work, but
> save them for health workers.

Who said masks don't work? What I recall people saying is:

* most masks provide marginal protection to the wearer

* the masks that provide effective protection should be saved for those in situations where they need them (and can be knowledgeably used)

* most people probably don't need those masks

There's a worthwhile criticism in noting some seem to have taken longer to get
on board with the idea that marginally effective masks (a) reduce spread and
(b) are a low-cost intervention, but people who are going to make that
criticism probably should doing it from a standpoint where they're asking
themselves why _they_ flattened the above multi-point conception into "masks
don't work."

And if this is all about using the initial misunderstanding as a jumping off
point to the difficulty of getting non-trivial information out to the public,
that actually underscores the importance of curation.

> Does no one read history or think about second order effects?

Are you suggesting that this is _the_ milestone of history where someone
decided not to publish or distribute material because they thought it was
irresponsible?

Because I'd bet that's happened before, even inside societies that cultivate
robust discourse. Maybe even a lot.

Who is thinking about the second order effects of a no-responsibility no-
curation approach?

~~~
darawk
The CDC and WHO both at various times recommended against the general public
wearing masks.

[https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/13/21214114/media-
coronavi...](https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/13/21214114/media-coronavirus-
pandemic-coverage-cdc-should-you-wear-masks)

This advice was wrong. It is not just sick people that benefit from wearing
masks. It is not true that people are flattening that into "masks don't work".
Masks don't work was repeated many, many times by these organizations.

Here's an example:

[https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-
perspective/2020/04/commenta...](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-
perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data)

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-
masks-r...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-
recommendation-trnd/index.html)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-need-for-healthy-
peop...](https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-need-for-healthy-people-to-
wear-face-masks-2020-4)

Let's not practice revisionist history here. These organizations were dead
wrong, and it had severe consequences for the spread of infection.

~~~
dougmany
At least two of those links had nuanced reasons that matched the parent's
remarks. One even literately had a three point explanation:

* There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission

* Their use may result in those wearing the masks to relax other distancing efforts because they have a sense of protection

* We need to preserve the supply of surgical masks for at-risk healthcare workers.

~~~
Will_Parker
> There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of
> SARS-CoV-2 transmission

It's a disease spread by exhaled droplets. How the heck could masks _not_
work? Why has common sense, as an acceptable way to obtain knowledge, died in
the general public?

~~~
dougmany
I am always amused at how effective the _There is no scientific evidence_ line
is. That just means it has not been studied. No one has studied masks on this
specific strain? It's new for crying out loud.

~~~
DanBC
There is a lot of work on respiratory viruses and masks, and none of the RCTs
can find a benefit of wearing masks.

> No one has studied masks on this specific strain? It's new for crying out
> loud.

Yes they have. Here's one where they take four patients who have covid-19 and
fit them with masks and ask them to cough onto petri dishes. They find covid
outside the masks.

[https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342)

~~~
dougmany
It is interesting that the cotton masks were more effective than the surgical
mask:

>The median viral loads after coughs without a mask, with a surgical mask, and
with a cotton mask were 2.56 log copies/mL, 2.42 log copies/mL, and 1.85 log
copies/mL, respectively

My point was that if the statement read _Scientific evidence shows masks are
not effective_ it would means something. The lack of evidence showing
effectiveness does not disprove effectiveness.

------
4636760295
Whether you agree or not with the content of the book, censorship is pretty
much always wrong. If we censored all history about the Nazi's and their
ideology, we'd never be able to learn to avoid such atrocities.

------
WalterBright
We should remember Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Ch...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems)

------
mritun
Most people here on HackerNews are smart, educated, intelligent (probably in
the upper IQ percentile) and perfectly able to decide for themselves what is
good and bad.

HackerNews moderations and moderators are this suppressing speech of these
people and imho this is anti free speech.

Can we start a petition for banning moderation on this website please.

~~~
downerending
I'll accept snark, but grammar, please.

------
dmix
I've noticed the group that has the significant dislike and distrust of
authority figures, and tech companies in general, are the same people who more
than happy at giving them carte blanche, gleefully encouraging these sorts of
censorship systems.

The basic idea puts an incredible amount of trust in authority figures with
systems that have almost no appeals process or transparency - unless of course
you happen to be popular enough or stir up enough noise on the internet to get
internet gatekeepers attention.

Merely debating whether it's good or bad to be censoring misinformation, while
simultaneously glossing over the means, processes, and people being employed
to enforce these broad post at megacorps is a giant disingenuous waste of time
and riddled with contradictions.

