House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has just revealed emails that show the Biden White House pressured Amazon to censor books that contained information on vaccines that they didn’t like. Amazon totally caved and did it.
Below is Jordan’s tweet thread exposing it all:
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
Never-before-released internal emails subpoenaed by @JudiciaryGOP reveal that the Biden White House pressured Amazon to censor books that expressed views the White House did not approve of.
“Is the [Biden] Admin asking us to remove books”? pic.twitter.com/ZsAN9BZAcX
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
Andy Slavitt—the senior Biden White House official who demanded that Facebook censor a meme and true information—was pressuring Amazon at the same time.https://t.co/vOgRkBNFmW
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
On March 2, 2021, Slavitt fired off an email demanding to know who he and his White House colleagues could talk to at the company about “the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?” pic.twitter.com/aWSMp3aSOc
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
How did the Biden White House conclude that there was “propaganda and misinformation” in books sold in Amazon’s bookstore?
The White House ran keyword searches for controversial topics, such as “vaccine,” and emailed Amazon when it didn’t like how the search results appeared: pic.twitter.com/FmVYPJQR6n
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
Initially, Amazon decided to hold off on “doing a manual intervention” to censor books.
Why? Not out of any commitment to free speech, but because doing so would be “too visible” to the American public and likely to spur criticism from conservative media. pic.twitter.com/166wXiPsha
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
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. pic.twitter.com/tKjBTesZoU
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
A week later, on March 9, 2021, Amazon met with the White House.
Internal Amazon documents reveal Amazon’s “top talking points” going into the meeting.
One of the key questions was whether the Biden White House wanted books banned or just buried deep in the search results: pic.twitter.com/wnWj9eCyJf
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
Why did Amazon agree to take this meeting? Because they were “feeling pressure from the White House” pic.twitter.com/n7Xe0D5lhH
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
After the White House spent a week berating Amazon, what did the online bookstore do?
Starting March 9—the same day as its meeting with the White House—Amazon enabled “Do Not Promote” for books that expressed the view that vaccines were not effective. pic.twitter.com/8YEXjAL8BD
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
And that wasn’t all. Amazon also considered other ways “to reduce the visibility” of certain books that the Biden White House disliked. pic.twitter.com/q9JC1LYb5m
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024
That’s right.
Amazon caved to the pressure from the Biden White House to censor speech. @JudiciaryGOP and @Weaponization are investigating.https://t.co/P1hlB3c5WO
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 5, 2024