Banned Books: Analysis of Censorship on Amazon.com (2024)

Key findings We analyze the system Amazon deploys on the US “amazon.com” storefront to restrict shipments of certain products to specific regions. We found 17,050 products that Amazon restricted from being shipped to at least one world region. While many of the shipping restrictions are related to regulations involving WiFi, car seats, and other heavily regulated product categories, the most common product category restricted by Amazon in our study was books. Banned books were largely related to LGBTIQ, the occult, erotica, Christianity, and health and wellness. The regions affected by this censorship were the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and many other Middle Eastern countries as well as Brunei Darussalam, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, and Zambia. In our test sample, Amazon censored over 1.1% of the books sold on amazon.com in at least one of these regions. We identified three major censorship blocklists which Amazon assigns to different regions. In numerous cases, the resulting censorship ... Read full article.