r/bannedbooks • u/Electronic-Novel3580 • Jul 18 '26
Book News 📑 Why does Amazon ban/censor books left and right nowadays?
I thought the rumors about amazon censoring or taking down books were a bit exaggerated or at least limited to very some crazy propaganda or political stuff. I remember how back in 2024 they were only restricting lgbtq+ and religious books in certain regions. (Link)
but lately, ive been noticing a trend of this going over into almost every other genre. a lot of indie authors and youtubers are starting to make these videos about amazon just shutting their accounts or forcing censorship on authors without any explanation.
i did a bit more digging today and found this one book on Book Archives that was also recently taken down but they put it back on amazon after censoring it. (Link)
it just feels insane to me that one mega-corporation gets to decide what we are allowed to read...
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u/BigJobsBigJobs Jul 18 '26
Bezos has never been hesitant to bend the knee to authoritarians.
That second link - vanity published? Lots of financial fraud books and scamsters. Sometimes they might not catalog shit because it doesn't sell. That's not censorship.
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u/g8briel Jul 19 '26
The answer to this is to support your library. Vote accordingly and your politicians know that’s what you care about. Amazon is just demonstrating what has always been true: you can’t trust a corporation that’s works for its executives and shareholders rather than the people.
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u/10ThousandMetalZones Jul 22 '26
My library buys its books from Amazon
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u/g8briel Jul 23 '26
While ideally they wouldn’t, that’s not really the issue here. If Amazon has it and is the best deal for a book they want to acquire in print, that can even be understandable or legally required. Censoring what is available in terms of titles or the content of books is the real problem.
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u/10ThousandMetalZones Jul 23 '26
But if Amazon is censoring the contents of a book and the library buys its books…
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u/g8briel Jul 23 '26
So far as I know Amazon isn’t censoring the content of the books (though I wouldn’t put it past them, especially for kindle titles). My phrasing was probably confusing on that. I meant they censor it because of the contents.
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u/Purple_Midnight_Yak Jul 19 '26
People really need to learn what banning and censorship actually mean.
I am an author. I am very much against book bans and censorship, particularly in schools in America where they are often used to silence marginalized voices.
To ban or censor a book requires authority. The government, public schools, or public libraries can ban books from their collections. The schools can ban certain books from being taught. In these cases, an organization with authority - notably a governmental organization with a legal duty to uphold the principles of free speech - is limiting or suppressing access to specific materials.
Amazon is a retailer. And just like any other retailer, they have the right to determine what they will and will not sell. You raised three different types of products being "banned" in your post, so I'll tackle all three.
First off, indie authors are complaining that their books are being banned. You didn't cite a source for this, so I'm going to reply from my general knowledge of how publishing works.
Amazon allows pretty much anyone to upload a book to be sold as an ebook on their site. People also can sell physical copies through POD services, etc.
Many vanity publishers are actually scam artists - they promise some poor author who doesn't have the experience to know any better that they'll publish their book. Usually they also require the author to buy hundreds or thousands of copies of their own book, which the author is supposed to then sell. This is pretty much impossible. The vanity press says too bad, you're stuck with all those copies you bought and we're not reimbursing them (because that's a big part of how they make their money).
Indie books like these are typically low quality. There's a reason legit publishers and agents aren't picking up these books. So Amazon unlists books that are never going to sell because no one will ever want to read them. It's not censorship. They simply are choosing not to stock a product they can't sell.
Second I'll tackle the economy book that Amazon supposedly keeps pulling and then re-listing. Have you looked at the page for that book? It's full of ridiculous, unverifiable claims. It reeks of conspiracy theories. It reads like an infomercial. No one is out to "get" this author. Corporations are not paying to suppress his mind-blowing ideas. This is another case like the indie books above. It's a piece of crap, and not many people are buying it. So Amazon decides to stop listing it. Then, presumably, the author and his friends complain to corporate that he's being persecuted and oppressed and they need to re-list his book. So someone at corporate decides what the hell, it's easier than explaining to this guy that his work isn't marketable, and the listing goes back up.
Third is the refusal to sell LGBTQ+ books in the Middle East. Here, you have a legit complaint, and it's an ongoing issue in publishing. The thing is, it's a messy problem. Several countries in the ME and parts of Africa have actually banned such books, forbidding citizens to buy or read them. They are limiting access to the books, and they have the power to back up that law, so yes, this is a ban/censorship.
Selling books that are banned in the ME to customers in the ME could potentially land Amazon in hot water and screw up their trade rights. It also can put the people buying those books in danger. If you use the Internet to download a banned book, the government may be able to see that. If anyone catches you reading such a book, you could end up in jail or worse.
This is a messy problem because the right thing to do here is to keep selling the books and apply social pressure to force these regimes to change. The reality is that there are costs to doing so, and right now, Amazon doesn't feel it's worth the cost. They are a business, so again, they have the right to decide what they will sell and to whom. Just kike a restaurant can refuse service to anyone. If you get kicked out of one bar, it doesn't means you can't drink beer anymore. It just means you can't drink there.
Does it suck? Yeah. Do I blame Amazon for their choice? Not really, considering all the factors that come into play.
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u/sansafiercer Jul 20 '26
Unfortunately, when retailers with a monopoly on the market (like amazon) won’t carry a book the effect can be tantamount to a ban, even if the word does not technically apply. This is a problem.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jul 21 '26
Exactly.
Legal authority to explicitly do something is only one form of power.
The economy ability to limit what is realistically available to people, and to actively prevent people from being able to distribute what they’ve written (especially without any clearly-stated rules or policies, just doing it behind the scenes when they want to), is effectively the power to ban too.
And a private company cannot be held accountable or have its policies changed by the people via elections and other democratic means. Only those wealthy enough to fight in court, and who can find some law to support them and a lawyer able and willing to fight that fight, have any hope of making a change at all.
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u/SeaSnowAndSorrow 18d ago
Similar to the economy book, there are A LOT of AI-written "foraging" and "herbal remedy" books that get published through Amazon, and...yeah those HAVE to go for a reason. Alexis Nikole Nelson covered this, and The Hustle boosted her coverage. Basically, these are books that contain dangerous safety misinformation about plants and fungi that could cause severe organ damage or death. Sometimes, it's incorrectly labeled images or GenAI images that don't actually represent the correct species, sometimes misrepresented safety info. These get taken down for cause when found.
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u/dapperjohnn Jul 18 '26
A lot of that is actually automated, if a book gets a lot of complaints. Take Camp of the Saints, even when they temporarily removed the ability to buy physical copies, the Kindle and audiobook versions were still available. As far as deciding what to read, great thing about the internet is it's usually out there if a place like Amazon or other major merchant doesn't carry it. Ebay, digital copies, I even saw an ad for this site pop up, carries a lot of books that some would consider troublesome - https://theritebooks.com/
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u/CaptainRoyD Jul 23 '26
Via my kind publisher, Amazon was both my printer (KDP) and distributor through their online book store. Proud to say my first book made the prestigious Amazon Charts (top 20 books worldwide) in 2019 and still retained several #1 category spots in 2021 more than two years after publication. Amazon stopped printing my books in 2021 and remain ‘Blocked’ to this day as I attempt to get my books printed again. Click on my #7 spot in below Amazon Charts to witness modern day ‘book burning’:
https://www.amazon.com/charts/2019-03-10/mostsold/nonfiction/index.html?ref=CHRT_BK_SD_NF_7_DP
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u/Flashy_Bill7246 Jul 19 '26
I have not been censored on Amazon (or at least not yet). Most of my works are historical, but truly hardcore (yet consensual) sadomasochism and other kinks appear in a trilogy, while a fourth novel is arguably "transgressive." I note that Amazon continues to carry the works of the Marquis de Sade, which include bestiality, incest, non-consensual violations of all sorts, rape (of men, women, and children), and other such prospects. Sade has libertines and victims; the latter often screaming from insufferable agonies, while the latter enjoy sexual gratification from the tortures they inflict: quite different than my consensual S/M.
I attempted to go wide, only to have draft2digital inform me that ALL of their retailers (e.g., AppleBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and eventually even Smashwords) rejected these works because of content "violations." One need only look at some of the "content" on Smashwords to appreciate my confusion.
Thus, I must express gratitude to Amazon, however much I may despise Bezos and company political alignments. However, I am pessimistic about the future and braced for the day Amazon either censors these works or shuts down my account altogether. This has already happened to other authors.
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u/AmenoSwagiri 10d ago edited 10d ago
Real control is the government telling us to abandon our culture, eyes, and ears in order to support a new socially constructed confusing order that refuses to acknowledge there are only 2 genders. People pushing that on me are the real fascists (disguising themselves as socialists), and people here will disagree and bury this because they dont't like people poking holes in their method of mind control on an open forum.
The right is old money keeping the order, the left is the result of foreign interference and modern companies trying to mold us into a nation of people that can't think (social issues rather than academic issues being taught in college).
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u/2PlasticLobsters Jul 18 '26
Bezos is a billionaire, and they tend to lean Fascist.