Resolves as YES if, before 2030, Amazon prevents people from reading or downloading eBooks that they previously purchased from Amazon because the content violates Amazon's content policies.
For example, if Amazon blocks you from reading or downloading your eBook copy of Huckleberry Finn because the n-word violates new content guidelines, then this resolves as YES. If your Kindle copy of the Satanic Verses has paragraphs or pages censored or omitted because Amazon considers them Islamophobic, then this resolves as YES.
If Amazon is enforcing a country's censorship laws, that does not count. For example, if you go to China, tune into Wifi, and find that your copy of Xi Jinpeng's unauthorized biography is blocked by Amazon, then this claim does not resolves as YES. In that case, Amazon is likely censoring the eBook to comply with China's wishes, not because Amazon thinks the content is objectionable.
Decision criteria:
-- If a reputable old-media company reports that Amazon is censoring purchased content, then the claim resolves as YES.
-- If a high-circulation new media (e.g. Substack) outlet which employs fact checkers says Amazon is censoring purchased content, then the claim resolves as YES, depending on whether I find the news source to be credible.. (If Bari Weiss' The Free Press reports that Amazon has censored or blocked books, then I'll mark this as YES.)
-- If I cannot access one of my Amazon Kindle books and Amazon tells me that the previously-purchased book violates their content policy, then this resolves as YES. I "own" several Kindle eBooks that would probably be censored.
-- Critically important: the book has to be an eBook which could previously be purchased on Kindle, but is blocked by Amazon because of an evolving interpretation of their content policy. So if Marine Le Pen publishes a book called "Throw all of the Muslims into the Ocean" in 2024 and Amazon refuses, from the outset, to sell a single copy, then that does not cause this claim to resolve as YES. However, if I buy a Kindle copy of Christopher Rufo's book "America's Cultural Revolution: How the Left Conquered Everything" in 2024, and I cannot access it in 2027 because the content is banned by Amazon as hate speech, then this resolves as YES.
If Amazon deletes or censors your eBook purchase and they give you a refund or credit for the money you spent, this claim still resolves as YES.
1,000
3.00What about execution of stealth non-consensual post-publication edits by the publisher?
That is, Amazon changes the content on your Kindle to be the "new edition" according the publisher, and the motivation of the publisher's edits is clearly censorious, the version on your Kindle is censored, and the old version which you purchased from Amazon is no longer available on Amazon.
If that counts, it has already happened: See the Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie version pushes.
I'd understand if this market wants to be specifically about unilateral Amazon action, but I'd argue Amazon's decision to participate, and not to at least offer the unedited versions, is a censorious company policy on purchased e-books.