More than a dozen Congress members are demanding that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explain how his AmazonSmile program decides which charities can participate.
AmazonSmile allows customers to donate 0.5% of certain purchases to "eligible non-profit organizations."
The problem, writes Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., and 14 colleagues, is that the program "relies on information from the Southern Poverty Law Center to exclude conservative nonprofits."
"Amazon’s reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) means that Amazon takes a biased approach to determining whether certain non-profits can participate in AmazonSmile," they wrote. "For example, Amazon offers its customers the opportunity to donate to pro-abortion Planned Parenthood, but not to certain conservative groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom or Family Research Council. Amazon actively prevents such conservative groups from participating because of how the SPLC has labeled these organizations as 'hate groups.'"
Last month, Bezos told a hearing of the Antitrust Subcommittee that his company restricts some groups from the program because of SPLC's evaluation.
The Congress members point out that for years, the SPLC "has received criticism for its business practices, internal culture, and approach to identifying and publicizing certain 'hate groups.'"
One author, they noted, called the SPLC's "hate map" designating certain groups as extremist "an outright fraud" and "a willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC."
"In particular," the letter said, the SPLC "has baselessly labeled some conservative charitable organizations 'hate groups,' along actual extremist organizations such as neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan."
The SPLC's agenda includes a commitment to homosexual and transgender activism that forms the basis for labeling Christian groups such as the Family Research Council as "haters."
In fact, a gunman who cited the SPLC's condemnation attacked FRC headquarters in Washington, declaring later he had intended to kill as many people as possible.
The letter asserted that Amazon's "reliance on the SPLC as a barometer to determine the eligibility of charitable organizations on AmazonSmile serves to discriminate against conservative views."
And with the SPLC's "documented anti-conservative track record," it "reinforces allegations that Big Tech is biased against conservatives and censors conservative views."
Among the signatories were Reps. Collins, Jim Jordan, James Sensenbrenner, Ken Buck, Mike Johnson, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert and Andy Biggs.
Collins recently introduced the Stop the Censorship Act of 2020 with Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., which would remove the immunity to civil liabilities that Big Tech platforms have under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
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