Amazon Reverses Censorship Decision

Earlier this week, The Heritage Foundation was informed that Amazon would not support paid promotion of Heritage Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalez’s exposé on the Black Lives Matter movement, “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution.” Amazon declared promotion of the book “no longer complies with our current Creative Acceptance Policies” because it “contains book/s or content that is not allowed. Content that revolves around controversial or highly debated social topics is not permitted.” In other words, Heritage viewpoints were effectively being censored.

Heritage appealed the decision earlier this week, giving Amazon well beyond its own stated response time before issuing a forceful statement Thursday morning. Amazon subsequently reversed its decision and will allow paid promotion of Gonzalez’s book to move forward. Importantly, an Amazon spokesperson told The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas that the original decision banning promotion was the result of human error, not an automated decision by a computer or algorithm.

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