I don't think deleting 1984 was a gaslighting moment, though it was an ironic act of censorship (even if there was a capitalist/corporate reason rather than a propaganda reason, the effect was the same).
Gaslighting would've been if they'd changed the text so that Big Brother had been the good guy all along, and when you looked at the text again you decided you must have just misremembered it.
I have a completely unfalsifiable conspiracy theory, call it a
"curious hand-waving intuition"... that the post-facto explanation
Amazon gave about "publishing rights" is a little too clean and
slippery for my linking.
Do not the choices of Ayn Rand and George Orwell, both of whom deal
with themes of authoritarianism, from amongst all possible book titles
and authors, seem a little interesting?
Almost as if someone, an insider perhaps, had wanted to remind the
public that Amazon's capabilities were not those of your friendly
local bookstore.
I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting. That some Amazon employee decided to delete everyone's copy of 1984 as an obscure jab at their employer and then Amazon, instead of saying it was an error and reversing it, just ran with it and made some bizarre cover-up?
Gaslighting would've been if they'd changed the text so that Big Brother had been the good guy all along, and when you looked at the text again you decided you must have just misremembered it.