So-called "cancel culture" isn't just the politically correct variety.
Conservatives in the US, for example, have been practising "cancel culture" for eons -- long before the term "cancel culture" ever became popular.
Rock music, gay rights, women's rights, equal rights for minorities, workers' rights and a secular society are all example of things American conservatives have fought pretty hard to "cancel".
Totally agree. Dixie Chicks during the Bush era. Conservatives invented cancel culture. Not that it is right in either case, but during the recent CPAC speeches it is clear that Free Speech is only concerned with convervative free speech - little defense of gay porn, Islamic books and ideas, or forums like this ..
However, there self absorbed desires could get a good result - the general criticisms that free speech issues are not in the hands of private companies such as face book are justified - no one uses the public square anymore - and there is no neutral public square for discussions. Mega corporations should not be making decisions about free speech without some kind of public oversight or fair process. Not an easy problem to solve mind you.
And if parents don't want to buy the books that one thing, but stopping a cultural legacy because they want to police our minds - that is another. It reminds me of the ban of "I have A dream speech" my Martin Luther King which can no longer be published in school books (for market reasons)-
-https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/08/copyright-battle-behind-i-have-dream/311980/
As an aside the racist line in one book is something like " words that no one can pronounce" referring to words such as 北京 - which as far as I can see is true. The irony is that the only culture that isn't racist or sexist or both by these standards is Canadian - in Japan non Japanese are called the G word as standard, other cultures white devils as standard - many European languages have sex for each and ever word (German has a neutral IT option, so its the one of the least racist languages -not that helped it during WWII).
This could be just a PR stunt to sell books, the 6 banned books will be sold in mass, whatever copies are left, they may have even printed extra copies before stopping the presses. Others will buy the other books before they are removed as well. I have a book collection of banned books - 1984 , Brave New World, Playboy magazines and the rest, now I will ad these to my collection of
Index Librorum Prohibitorum - at least they are not burning them this time. Thugs and small minded haters of history and culture.
That being said, I be perfectly OK with the books being published with a warning - even saying not suitable for children even - as children books are a special case. I never read them, maybe they are horrible but probably no more horrible that the Avengers Mandarin super villain or the Raiders of the Lost Arc cartoon look at Germans,
Yet, the same kids are watching Two Girls and a Cup on the internet when mom and dad are away. Go figure.