Seems that Amazon is censoring user reviews when it comes to L. Ron Hubbard’s psychotic ramblings that mask as a self-help book… I’m talking about the reviews of Dianetics.  This is surprising, especially Amazon; at the same time it is not really.

When will they ever learn? You just can’t mess with the interbutts. First it was YouTube, who cowered in fear, when it suppressed free speech and fair use by pulling the leaked Tom Cruise Video, then it was Ebay allowing the Church of Scientology to yank post-consumer e-meters off its website, now it’s Amazon pulling negative reviews of Dianetics.

Just the usual tactics by the cult to mis-represent themselves and put their best face forward.  Though their best face has been getting worse and worse.

As we’ve seen over the last few months, the Cult of Scientology has been trying to silence dissent in the wake of the protests held outside its doors by Anonymous (there is another protest, Operation Reconnect, that will be held this Saturday, April 12).  The fall out from this should be rather interesting as Amazon’s responses seem to be a standard form mail and not specific to the actual content of the reviews.

I’m guessing this isn’t the first time Amazon has engaged in censorship of user reviews on their site.

In other Anonymous-related news, this is a pretty interesting article calling for academic study on just what has happened, from a sociological standpoint, over the last two months.

Anonymous presents an array of opportunities for interesting scholorship. It is a cultural community, a political movement, a legal battleground, and more. It straddles between internet and “real world” existence. We need to study Anonymous… and to study hard.

Tags: amazon censors, censorship

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