Online book retailers like Amazon, Powell’s, and Barnes and Noble need to put policies in place to ensure that they are not unwittingly, or otherwise, helping fund hate groups.
This is the main takeaway from a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center published last week, “White Nationalist Group Exploits Amazon To Fund Their Cause.” The SPLC noted that almost two dozen titles from the hate group are sold on Amazon. Powell’s lists a similar number of titles, while Barnes and Noble promptly pulled their Antelope Hill page after being contacted by the SPLC’s reporters.
Amazon said it screens the actual materials, not who publishes and profits off of it. A Powell’s spokesperson, as the article notes, told the SPLC “‘books are being banned at schools and libraries across the country’ and expressed a commitment to free speech, which did not directly address the critique that Antelope Hill’s business funds white supremacist activism.”
Antelope Hill also has a children’s book imprint called Little Frog Hill.
Read the full Southern Poverty Law Center article here: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/08/23/white-nationalist-group-exploits-amazon-fund-their-cause
