Biden Admin pushed Amazon for ‘Digital Book Burning’ of books critical of COVID vaccines

Internal emails included in the Select Committee report showed Amazon wanted to get the White House off their back while trying to maintain their autonomy and principles amidst pressure for censorship

In the early months of 2021, the Biden Administration, who had just taken power, started pressuring various companies to take action against content and retail offerings that they deemed misinformation. Their focus was mainly Covid critical and Covid Vaccine critical content. One of those companies was Amazon.

It all began on March 2nd, 2021, with a White House official contacting the Amazon Books team to discuss their concerns over search results turning up anti-vaccine books. They felt it was highly problematic that Amazon would host books containing content that was questioning the efficacy and safety of the vaccines — more specifically Covid vaccines.

At the time, Amazon had no policy against such products. Their content policies allowed for a wide range of view points to be sold on their platform. It allowed for content such as the book featured in the email sent to Amazon by a White House Official, seen below.

Communications from the White House expressed concerns that a book popping up in search results didn’t have a CDC warning next to it.

In a follow up email, the White House official suggested that books similar to the one cited should be suppressed or removed entirely. Amazon felt that a CDC warning alone would not appease the Biden Administration.

Amazon had attempted to defend their policy of allowing a variety of view points on their platform, in large part because they’re not the same type of platform as a social media company.

However, the White House Official repeatedly advanced the idea that taking censorship further than mere de-boosting or a promotion ban should be on the table considering the “dire nature” of such “misinformation” being featured on their site.

Considering the urgency the Biden Administration relayed to Amazon, they felt comfortable utilizing an “extremism classification” tool they wouldn’t normally use in this context to appease them — they simply wanted to get them off their backs. This would essentially stop their system from promoting these types of books.

Following email communications that took place on March 8th, 2021, books critical of vaccine efficacy and safety had been tagged as “extremism” as they changed their policy the following morning. On this morning of March 9th, the policy was altered to accommodate the actions the White House wanted them to take, but only after the pressure was enough that they felt compelled to do so.

That morning, 43 books were flagged under this “do not promote” classification.

In the internal communications between Amazon Books teams and Amazon leadership, they explicitly expressed the importance of establishing this classification, and that it “stemmed from a need to address the ‘negative feedback’ from the Biden White House’s Coronavirus Taskforce.”

Amazon was trying to maintain their autonomy amidst the pressure from the White House, so they whipped up talking points to go into communications with if pressed on certain issues, such as asking whether requests were for full removal or simply the search results issue originally presented. They also prepared responses to potential lines of questioning that touted the “removal of 10k-20k vaccine related books”, but wanted to try to avoid any discussion around vaccine specific content.

However, under this pressure, they were willing to promise to also remove vaccine safety and efficacy content if pressed.

Ultimately, they were trying to get the Biden Administration off their back while maintaining their “dedication” to fostering a retail market that includes controversial books across a wide range of view points—something to commend them for.