[m0zg]

He's right though. As far as the first amendment goes, books are the most robust medium we have. You can go to Amazon right now and buy a copy of Mein Kampf, hardcover, paperback, or Kindle. Surely Berenson's book is not worse than Mein Kampf?

Here's a though experiment, reductio ad absurdum, if you will.

Say you like Bezos' politics and agree with the stuff he wants to censor. Say tomorrow Bezos is run over by a bus and, through a weirdest twist of fate in history (bear with me on this one) Richard Spencer takes his place, complete with his own, very different editorial preferences.

Would you still agree that Amazon, as a company, has an unimpeded right to censor speech then? And if not, you need to think very carefully why you're _not_ against giving them this power now.

[erichocean]

> You can go to Amazon right now and buy a copy of Mein Kampf

Not in Germany.

I sell books worldwide on Amazon, and the number of titles that are banned in countries (not just Germany, BTW) is pretty astounding.

And it's mostly not Hitler stuff, either.

[m0zg]

The vast majority of countries do not have freedom of speech. Germany is one of those countries. You will say and do whatever Merkel tells you to say and do. The United States is not like that.

[enitihas]

So do you think bookstores are compelled to sell books? How is that free speech? That is compelled speech. And Amazon is not a monopoly in any reasonable definition. You can sell books on 100 different stores and via so many other publishers.

[m0zg]

Amazon is a monopoly on Kindle, which is what the author has issues with. It's sort of like if there was only one manufacturer of a printing press and they forbade you from printing anything they don't like on it.

Also, every time a rebuttal starts with "so", the rest is an attempt at mind reading. Those are always unsuccessful.

[enitihas]

> Amazon is a monopoly on Kindle, which is what the author has issues with.

This makes no sense. Companies all have monopolies on their own products. Apple has monopoly on the iPad, which is a similar competing reading device. Sony has monopoly on the PlayStation. Microsoft has monopoly on Office and Xbox. Are you suggesting that all companies should give up the ownership of all of their products?

There are several competing products to Kindle, like Nook and even iPad (which funnily enough, tried to monopolistically engage in price fixing)

[logicprog]

Plus, Amazon actually doesn't have a monopoly on Kindle. All an author needs to do is render their book to a MOBI and then put it on their website for a paid download and have the downloaders use "send to kindle" through their phone or email. It's that simple, I do it all the time for free ebooks not published on Amazon.

[patagurbon]

No, Kindle can load ebooks from your PC or Mac with the included USB cable.

[_alex_]

First amendment protects you from the government, not corporations

[m0zg]

Filed away for when Amazon inevitably decides to censor the speech you like.