by Ben Whedon
The House Judiciary Committee and the Weaponization subpanel on Monday revealed internal documents secured via the subpoena of Amazon, highlighting the Biden administration’s efforts to address “propaganda” and “misinformation” in books the online retailer sold.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan outlined the effort in an X thread reminiscent of the “Twitter Files” reports that addressed federal involvement with that platform.
THE AMAZON FILES – “feeling pressure from the White House”
Internal docs subpoenaed by @JudiciaryGOP & @Weaponization indicate that @amazon bowed down to Biden White House pressure to censor BOOKS.
🧵 Thread:
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
Kicking off the episode, Jordan asserted, was a 2021 email from a White House official seeking an opportunity to discuss “the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?”
“Why was the Biden White House so upset with Amazon? Because Amazon believed ‘retailers are different than social media communities’ & provided their ‘customers with access to a variety of viewpoints.’ For the Biden Admin, letting Americans think for themselves was unacceptable,” Jordan posted.
He then highlighted an internal email from Amazon in the leadup to the meeting, in which a staffer asked “[i]s the [Biden] Admin asking us to remove books, or are they more concerned about search results/order (or both)?” reads one internal email from an Amazon staffer.”
In the wake of the meeting, Amazon moved to not promote books questioning vaccine efficacy.
“As a reminder, we did enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective on 3/9, and will review additional handling options for these books with you,” reads another email.
“Amazon caved to the pressure from the Biden White House to censor speech,” Jordan concluded, vowing more to come.
Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.
Image “Rep. Jim Jordan” by House Judiciary Cmte.
