NBA player Kyrie Irving promoted an antisemitic book and movie on social media. The book and movie are still on Amazon’s best-seller lists, and Jewish groups are pressuring the e-commerce giant to take them down.
The New York Times says that the company is now thinking about adding a disclaimer to the movie.
The Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to Amazon on Friday on behalf of itself and Irving’s basketball team, the Brooklyn Nets. The letter asked Amazon to either take down the “virulently antisemitic book and related video” or put a note on them about how offensive they are.
The letter says, “The book and the movie are meant to stir up hatred, and now that Mr Irving has brought them to more people’s attention, they will directly hurt Jews.” This is what The Washington Post says the letter says. “These ideas are not just different ways of looking at history; they are pure antisemitic hatred. They spread old antisemitic stereotypes about Jews’ power, greed, and control of the media.
The American Jewish Committee, which is a big Jewish group, asked Amazon on Monday to do something about the problem by taking down the book and movie.
The Chief Executive Officer of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch, was quoted as saying in a statement that “effectively combatting antisemitism requires corporate leaders to recognise what antisemitism is and take bold action to oppose it.” “In light of the controversy that has arisen as a result of Kyrie Irving’s posting of a film that contains antisemitic tropes and Holocaust denial, it is essential that Amazon respond as swiftly as possible to remove this vile material.”
A little more than a week ago, Irving published a link to the product page on Amazon for the documentary “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” which is based on a book of the same name.
After its release, the movie quickly rose to the top of the charts on Amazon Video’s documentary section. There are already 370 reviews for the movie on IMDb, which is a popular movie database owned by Amazon. A screenshot of the page for the title taken in February shows that there were just eight reviews for it at that time.
As of Monday, the book that is relevant to this topic was the 78th greatest seller overall on Amazon, and it was in second place in the area known as Christian Education.
The documentary titled “Hebrews to Negroes” centres on the theory that modern-day African Americans are the genuine descendants of the ancient Israelites, while the Jews of today are making a false claim to having that lineage. It also contains several other antisemitic assertions, such as the falsified assertion that Jews dominated the American slave trade and the denial that the Holocaust even occurred.
Irving was unfazed by the backlash he received after posting a link to the movie, and he maintained his belligerent stance even after being kicked off the Nets for refusing to state that he did not hold antisemitic sentiments, which led to his suspension. However, eventually, he issued an apology for marketing the film, adding that he is “conscious of the bad impact of my tweet against the Jewish community and I take responsibility.”
Before the Nets will let Irving come back to the team, they want him to complete a series of procedures, one of which is to meet with Jewish community leaders and the ADL.
As long as the movie is available on Amazon, the e-commerce giant will continue to keep half of the purchase price for itself while sending the other half to the director. There have been calls for the firm to give a portion of the profits made from the book and film to organisations that work to combat the propagation of hatred.
Alvin H. Rosenfeld, director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University and a professor there, told The Washington Post that it is unethical to make money from such a harmful book. “It’s irresponsible to generate money from such a toxic book,” he said.
According to the guidelines that Amazon provides to filmmakers who want to distribute their films on the company’s platform, “all titles undergo manual and automated reviews.” These reviews are designed to identify copyright violations, sexually explicit content, and “derogatory comments, hate speech, or threats specifically targeting any group or individuals.”
According to Amazon’s policy for bookstores, the online retailer reserves the right to remove content deemed “offensive.” In addition to this, it states that it will be open to hearing a wide variety of perspectives.
According to the policy, “as a bookseller, we feel that providing access to the written word is crucial,” and this includes offering access to content that some people may find offensive.
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