Major Internet retailer Amazon.com is facing a growing public backlash and a call for boycotts, including a call by Antiwar.com, following its decision this morning to oust WikiLeaks.org from its cloud server hosting service.
The move came following pressure from a number of top officials, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (I – CT), who slammed Amazon’s decision in allowing the whistleblower to host information embarrassing to the US government.
Amazon.com has refused to comment on its removal but appears to have done so without giving WikiLeaks advanced notice, leaving their site down for much of the morning. The site is now back up and is based in Uppsala, Sweden. The new host in Bahnhof Internet AB.
WikiLeaks condemned the decision, saying “if Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.” A number of consumers have already vowed to boycott Amazon over the decision.
The call for a formal boycott is also growing from a number of groups, including Antiwar.com, which removed Amazon.com’s advertising links from its website in the wake of the announcement. In the past year Antiwar.com received approximately $10,000 through its referral links to Amazon.
Technically speaking, Amazon’s web hosting service allows all accounts to be banned at any time for virtually any reason. The decision to ban such an important website and at such an important time appears to have sparked considerable reaction.
And praise from Sen. Lieberman, who said Amazon has “set the standard for other companies” on the issue. As this standard appears to be removing any content the government finds sufficiently objectionable, this could be an extremely dangerous precedent.
I'm still seeing the Amazon.com advert. It's a small flash animation.
Calling amazon.com at their customer service line might help them understand their actions are unappreciated. Their listed customer service numbers are 1-866-216-1072 and 1-206-266-2992.
I suggest we each call our spineless U.S. Senators to request they sponsor a censure of Senator Lieberman for abusing his power as chair of the Committee on Homeland Security.
But…. the Amazon advert continues to flash proudly, right alongside this article! What's going on?
We had them all over the site so its possible we missed a few but please let me know if any are still there.
Hmmmm! I see an Amazon.com link to the right ——–>
Last night already I killed all my information on my Amazon account.
Credit dard, address etc. I will also ask all of my friends to do the same.
I found no way to cancel the entire account but will put them on my SPAM list too.
W.
Good job on giving up $10k/year in dumping Amazon from Antiwar.com. Awesome, way to take a stand. I'll donate more to you to help out (not $10k, but I'll help).
I have some outstanding orders with amazon.com and will probably annulate them, as well as return items on their way. I will NOT for the sake of sparing some money become a supporter of this unfair and illegal world, the US is pusuing with ever greater ruthlessnes.
I fully agree with the previous commentator and will also cancel my current membership with Amazone.com
“if Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.”
Any comment Amazon?……..thought not
Thanks to Antiwar.com and Jason Ditz for taking this principled stance.
How does one cancel one's account? Anyone know?
It's easy. Go to Help: one of the options provided is closing your account. It entails two simple steps–cancelling existing orders, then using an internal email to close.
Apart from properly removing the Amazon ad (it's still there at the time I write this), you should find a rival service to Amazon to promote as an alternative, even if they don't pay you – much more damaging to Amazon in the long run.
Any ideas?
Smart move, Amazon. Who are your foremost users? The internet-savvy surfers. Who are the most informed about news off the grid, from sources such as Wikileaks? The internet-savvy surfers.
Licking the boots of Zionists like Joseph Lieberman doesn't exactly help your standing with this group.
We know that WikiLeaks came under DOS attack from either the U.S. government or Israel proxies in the U.S. – that attack was about twenty times larger than the average DOS attack, something only a huge entity could pull off. WikiLeaks fled to Amazon's servers, and Amazon now kicks them out so that they will be attacked again.
Thanks to Antiwar.com for joining/leading this boycott. I found no way to cancel my account but I deleted my credit cards and will unsubscribe any communications I receive from them. There is no way to send them feedback. Hit the bums where it hurts this holiday season. Tony Vodvarka
Like the David Bowie song says, “This is not America”…actually “America” never was. It’s nothing but a place built on lies, empty slogans, symbols, and fantasy. And the entire world will rejoice when this house of lies, this house of genocidists, this house of rapacious, gluttonous, corporate lickspittles comes tumbling down. :)))
"Buy from Amazon.com and Support Anti-War.com' still flashing proudly away on the http://www.antiwar.com website. Clicking on the advert takes one directly to http://www.amazon.com .
After the amount of comments here and the statement from antiwar.com "The call for a formal boycott is also growing from a number of groups, including Antiwar.com, which removed Amazon.com’s advertising links from its website in the wake of the announcement.", it's astonishing that nothing has been done to rid the site of the advert. The above report is therefore not truthful in stating that all links have been removed. Odd coming from a site that likes to promote truth in its reporting.
I don't see any amazon ads… maybe it took a while to accomplish? I guess nothing short of instant is good enough, right ?
If you want to cancel your account, follow this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.ht…
Cancelling one's account.
Call them by phone and do so. There is a phone number on the site.
I called last night and cancelled and told them why.
I hope that this takes off.
Bravo to Antiwar.com; the next time you appeal for funds, I promise to make a donation over and above the monthly bit I automatically send your way.
This could be called unofficial official censorship. Old Joe speaks up and the site goes down. Did AIPAC clear its throat so forcefully that it left Amazon trembling in its booties.
I removed all my information on Amazon and sent them a message to make it clear why I did so.
Glad to join in the boycott of Amazon.com.
Truth must ALWAYS come first. Bye-bye, Bezos.
We are avid readers and purchase a lot of books. We are dumping amazon.com and switching to Barnes & Noble. We have also explained to amazon.com why we will no longer make purchases from them.
Unfortunately boycotting Amazon will prove to be an idle gesture. We are, like it or not, residing in a fascist country of brainwashed citizens. They neither want the truth, nor could they handle it. Like most human beings, they are trained through organized religion to believe rather than think rationally. How else can you assess the apparent majority clamor to punish and even assassinate Assange who has only been the medium for disclosing the truth about the conduct of governments which supposedly exist to serve the public? Americans are generally fat, lazy, ignorant and indoctrinated to accept anything authority figures espouse.
On the contrary, with corporate interests so often directing events, such boycotts are the nearest thing we have to a democracy. The first to the polls were those opposed to exposing the world's deadliest lies. Now it's our turn to be heard. Merry Christmas.
Boycott Amazon
Christmas too.
Does anyone know of a web site that is organizing the boycott?
It would be good to spread it around and to get them to keep a count of those who join the boycott.
And it should spread abroad too. Amazon should take a very serious hit for this and we should make an example of them with a well organized boycott.
I hope AW.C will publicize this boycott. I suspect that those who are antiwar and like Wikileaks read and buy more books than the average person.
As usual, there's Obama's Senate Mentor and Good Friend Joe Lieberman doing his dirty work for him.
Websites are cached in all sorts of places for performance reasons, including the browser installed on your computer. This means that you may be seeing old versions of certain parts of antiwar.com, until the new versions have finished propagating throughout all the different caches.
Just cancelled my account with Amazon.
I’m an ex-pat Yank down under. Used (Note-USED!) Amazon. No longer! Would sooner celebrate Ben ARNOLD’s birthday than use Amazon again. Will be using various means to get it across to people here about (is back-stabbing an appropriate term?) what Amazon did.
Wikileaks seems to have become very interesting to people down here. Hmmmmmm…..Must ask my Bp if praying for lightning strike is political incorrect for this!
Melawman hit the nail squarely on the head.
Cancel your Amazon account – o.k. But stop paying taxes is a little bit trickier..
By the way, who the heck are the idiots that elect that PoS Lieberman?!