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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

There is a well-developed legal system in the US and other countries for dealing with dangerous and fraudulent medical advice. The fact that this book can be legally sold is evidence that it either falls on the right side of the law or else nobody has pursued these legal claims.

This is attempting to bypass this system by going straight to centralized censorship.

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This is not censorship, books are still legal to buy in the US. It is one (biggest) merchant refusing to sell these books. They are putting people's safety ahead of their profit margins too. Perhaps they fear lawsuits arising from selling these book. But it is their choice, and right choice.

Yep, the publisher can set up their own little shop and sell through on a website. The right to free speech is not the right to rent someone else’s megaphone.

Hmm, up to a point, but Amazon own the biggest marketplace; Facebook own the biggest forum; etc.. They have unique positions, with far greater powers than single governments. I don't think arguments such as yours work for supranational organisations.

It's like saying people have the right to protest, but then saying they're not allowed to use a vehicle to get to a protest, in theory you're not interfering but in practice you prevent exercise of their rights.

In the U.S., false statements of fact are not protected under the First Amendment. [0]

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statements_of_fact

So, even if you consider Amazon liable for the protection of free speech (I don’t), this doesn’t really qualify.

This is definitely censorship, it just isn't censorship by the government.

The action of Amazon is censorship. That the book is available from other venues is irrelevant. E.g. in Soviet Union certain banned books were distributed outside of official channels (shipped from abroad or re-typed on typewriters); they were thus somewhat available, but would you say they were not censored out in general?

The problem is it is really hard to have standing. The victims are children: their parents are supposed to protect them in this case, but the parents are being mislead... Teenagers could perhaps sue, but I suspect austic kids are less likely to attempt this even if they could.

An action by Amazon is not centralized to anything. They’re a private company and not a monopoly. They can choose to sell or not sell anything they please. Centralized censorship would be the government or an unavoidable private monopoly decreeing that this book shall be unavailable.

What if Amazon began censoring authors of color?

What if Amazon gave every new baby chocolate eclairs?

They can do that. And people can choose to not shop there if they do.

They could not refuse business based on race in the US.

Yes, but believing in chemtrails or the danger of vaccines is quite different than race, legally and essentially.

Yes, it appears that Amazon preemptively removed the book, after weighing the brand damage potentially caused by a social media attack or other pressure versus the expected profit from its sales. Or, they considered the possibility of being made a party to a court action. In other words, it's likely simply a business decision based on the tenor of the times.

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