Democracy Dies in Darkness

Outcry over book ‘censorship’ reveals how online retailers choose books — or don’t

Perspective by
Book critic
Your local indie bookstore contains titles that have been carefully curated according to how much physical space is available. Online is a whole other story. (iStock)

Crying “Censorship!” has become the right’s favorite book marketing technique.

Roger Kimball, president of Encounter Books, is the latest publisher to hawk his wares this way in the Wall Street Journal. Last week, on the op-ed page, Kimball complained that Amazon had stopped selling “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” by social conservative Ryan T. Anderson. Kimball called the move “a deliberate act of censorship” — presumably to placate critics who call the book transphobic. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

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