AMAZON.COM, INC. | Report on content removal requests at AMAZON.COM, INC.

Status
1.61% votes in favour
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Proposal number
9
Resolution details
Company ticker
AMZN
Lead filer
National Legal and Policy Center
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Social
ESG sub-theme
  • Digital rights
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Consumer Discretionary
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
Shareholders request that Amazon.com, Inc. (“Company”) provide a report, published on the company’s website and
updated semi-annually – and omitting proprietary information and at reasonable cost – that specifies the Company’s policy
in responding to requests to remove or take down content from its platforms by the Executive Office of the President,
Members of Congress, or any other agency, entity or subcontractor on behalf of the United States Government.
This report shall also include an itemized listing of such “takedown” requests, including the name and title of the official
making the request; the nature and scope of the request; the date of the request; the Company’s action or inaction to the
request; and a reason or rationale for the Company’s response, or lack thereof
Supporting statement
SUPPORTING STATEMENT:
In Bantam Books, Inc. vs. Sullivan (1963), and in other cases, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that private
entities may not engage in suppression of speech at the behest of government, as it has the same effect as direct government
censorship.
On July 15, 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked, “Can you talk a little bit more about this request for
tech companies to be more aggressive in policing misinformation? Has the administration been in touch with any of these
companies and are there any actions that the federal government can take to ensure their cooperation, because we’ve seen,
from the start, there’s not a lot of action on some of these platforms.”
Psaki replied, “Sure. Well, first, we are in regular touch with these social media platforms, and those engagements typically
happen through members of our senior staff . . . .”
The Company regularly discriminates, censoring products based on viewpoint. It famously removed social media platform
Parler, without notice, from its cloud hosting service in January 2021.
The Company also banned the sale of books by a Russian philosopher, almost certainly at the behest of the U.S. Treasury
Department.1 Meanwhile, several versions of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler are available for sale on the site.
The Company has also been pressured by at least one U.S. Senator2 to censor materials that “peddl[e] misinformation
about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.”

Even widely accepted views on issues can be removed from the Company’s sales platform. One example is the removal3 of
a book on transgenderism, written by a former Heritage Foundation scholar.
Shareholders need to know whether the Company cooperates with government officials engaged in unconstitutional
censorship, opening the Company to liability claims by victims. Shareholders also need to know whether the Company fails
to disclose these potential liabilities as material risks in its public filings.

How other organisations have declared their voting intentions

Organisation name Declared voting intentions Rationale
Kutxabank Gestion SGIIC SAU. Against
Anima Sgr Against As it is unclear what the feasibility of implementing the proposal may be. Moreover, disclosing the name and title of the official making a takedown request, especially if the official is in a sensitive and non-public national security or law enforcement role, may be unlawful and could harm the company's reputation.
Rothschild & co Asset Management Against

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