Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are accusing Amazon of bias against conservatives.
Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Ken Buck of Colorado wrote a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday accusing the online retailer of “engag[ing] in systemic viewpoint-based discrimination.”
“In the unfortunate phenomenon of ‘cancel culture,’ Amazon plays a leading role in silencing and censoring the political speech of conservative Americans,” the lawmakers wrote. “In just the last several months, Amazon has exhibited a pattern of curtailing, censoring, and removing from its platforms content that espouses conservative viewpoints.”
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Jordan and Buck cited seven instances in which Amazon censored conservative views, including temporarily banning former President Donald Trump from video streaming service Twitch due to “hateful conduct” in June 2020, delisting a bestselling book about transgender issues titled When Harry Became Sally in February, and removing a documentary about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during Black History Month without explanation.
“These editorial decisions give the appearance of a coordinated effort to cancel conservative speech on Amazon’s platforms,” the Republicans, who asked Amazon to provide documents and communications related to these decisions, continued.
? #BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan and @RepKenBuck demand answers on Amazon’s censoring of conservative viewpoints. pic.twitter.com/0EJa1g05Im
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) March 12, 2021
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed in an email to the Washington Examiner that the company is “reviewing the letter” but declined further comment.
Jordan and Buck previously made similar accusations in a March 4 letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey asking for materials related to the decision to ban Trump permanently from the platform.
“In recent months, Twitter throttled the dissemination of a mainstream newspaper article critical of then-candidate Joe Biden’s son and later took the unprecedented step of de-platforming the sitting President of the United States,” they wrote. “If Twitter can do this to the President of the United States, it can do it to any American for any reason.”
On March 1, Jordan demanded a hearing on the “cancel culture sweeping America.”
“There is no better issue on which Republicans and Democrats can work together to address in our first full committee hearing than to address the scourge of cancel culture in the United States,” Jordan, who serves as the committee’s ranking member, wrote to Chairman Jerry Nadler.
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Democrats have largely dismissed Republicans’ concerns, saying the allegations are overstated.
“There is no evidence that there is any bias,” Rep. David Cicilline, who also serves on the Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “That can be [Jordan’s] entire focus, but it’s not an actual problem. The evidence is anecdotal so far, [and] we don’t operate on anecdotes. We operate on facts and data.”
