While Kyrie Irving was suspended for sharing on Twitter a link to a conspiratorial and anti-Semitic film titled “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America!” “, the NBA, the Nets and the Anti-Defamation League had also challenged Amazon, which broadcast this “documentary” on its “Prime Video” platform.
Until now, the company had not really reacted but the New York Times took advantage the arrival of Andy Jassy, the successor to Jeff Bezos at the head of Amazon, at his book fair to question him on the subject.
“As a reseller for hundreds of millions of customers with very different points of view, we must allow access to those points of view, even if they are objectionable and differ from our particular points of view”replied Andy Jassy, denying almost any moral control over what is sold on Amazon.
For years, the platform is regularly criticized for its extreme tolerance on the issue, associations explaining in particular that Amazon facilitates “the celebration of ideologies that promote hatred and violence”by allowing Nazi, racist or supremacist groups to maintain a commercial activity.
This is only so in the middle of the year that Amazon removed the worst propaganda films of the Nazi era, under public pressure from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, from its video platform.
Andy Jassy explains that Amazon refuses to comment on complex cases. Amazon thus only seems to want to act when the decisions are “simpler”he said, like the content that “actively incites or promotes violence, or teaches people how to do things like pedophilia (sic)”.
For the boss of Amazon, a “large group of people” and a panel are already reviewing the works on the platform anyway, in a “fairly complex process” that it is difficult to change.
As for the fact of adding a warning upstream of the film in question, a solution that Amazon had explained to consider, Andy Jassy does not seem to see any interest in it, and prefers to trust Internet users…
“The reality is that we have very extensive customer reviews”he concludes. “For books that get a lot of attention – especially public attention – customers do a good job of warning other people. »
