Amazon blocks ad for book probing BLM leaders: 'Content that revolves around controversial or highly debated social topics is not permitted'

Amazon reportedly blocked an advertisement this week for a new book probing the Marxist roots of Black Lives Matter leaders, claiming that the site does not permit content that "revolves around controversial or highly debated social topics."

What are the details?

The book, "BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution," written by former journalist and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation Mike Gonzalez, reportedly "examines who the BLM leaders are, delving into their backgrounds and exposing their agendas" to prove them "to be avowed Marxists who say they want to dismantle our way of life."

According to the Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation attempted to buy an ad for Gonzalez's book but was denied. The conservative think tank said that Amazon, the nation's largest retailer, "blocked it from its website."

In a notice to Heritage, the tech giant stated that the ad was blocked "specifically for the following reasons: Your ad contains book/s or content that is not allowed. Content that revolves around controversial or highly debated social topics is not permitted. Please remove this content from your ad."

What else?

In response to the news, Gonzalez told the Daily Signal, "I wrote this book because most of the press refused to cover the important questions about the people and organizations behind Black Lives Matter. Now Amazon is trying to limit how many Americans read this book."

"The American people deserve answers to those questions, especially after the 630 or more riots that left our cities burning, businesses destroyed and billions in damage, and Americans dead," Gonzalez, a former Wall Street Journal opinion columnist, said.

"I have to wonder if Nikole Hannah-Jones' and Ibram X. Kendi's books — which also sell in [Amazon's] 'Black and African American History' category, where my book often outranked them in the past week — face similar constraints. Herbert Marcuse, the critical theorist who authored the essay 'Repressive Tolerance,' would be proud of Amazon," he added.

The book is still available for purchase on Amazon despite the tech giant blocking advertising for it. Amazon did not respond to the Daily Signal's request for comment.

Anything else?

It is far from the first time that Amazon has censored or suppressed the distribution of conservative content.

Perhaps most notably, the retailer — which still sells copies of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" — removed Ryan T. Anderson's best-selling transgenderism critique, "When Harry Became Sally," from its online store in February.

In March, the retailer went even further, announcing a ban on the sale of any and all books that "frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness," despite gender dysphoria, a common topic included in books about transgenderism, being listed by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a mental disorder.

Amazon also pulled a documentary film about conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas without explanation — and during Black History Month, no less.