Author Stephen King has hit out at publisher Hachette over its decision to drop publication of Woody Allen’s memoir after a protest from his son, the author Ronan Farrow, prompted a walkout of staff at the publishing group’s New York office last Thursday.

“The Hachette decision to drop the Woody Allen book makes me very uneasy,” King, the horror writer, said on Twitter. “It’s not him; I don’t give a damn about Mr Allen. It’s who gets muzzled next that worries me.”

In Britain, Hachette’s decision was branded “worrying for writers and for readers” by Jo Glanville, the former director of writers’ group English PEN and award-winning editor of Index on Censorship.

“I am always afraid when a mob, however small and well-read, exercises power without any accountability, process or redress. That frightens me much more than the prospect of Woody Allen’s autobiography hitting the bookstores,” she writes in the Observer online this weekend.

The row over the dropping of the film director’s book is a new twist in an already complex situation that has seen the Allen family split over claims that the director molested Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. Allen, 84, has always denied the allegations.

In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction last month, it has also been presented as a test of the power of the #MeToo movement, which has embraced Ronan Farrow as a hero after his groundbreaking investigations into claims of sexual abuse and misconduct by powerful men.

Last Monday, after Hachette announced its intention to release Apropos of Nothing in April, the journalist issued a stinging indictment of the publisher, accusing it of duplicity because one of its imprints, Little, Brown, had published Catch and Kill, his book which followed on from his Pulitzer prize-winning reporting in the New Yorker investigating the Weinstein scandal, while another, Grand Central Publishing, was planning to bring out his father’s autobiography.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Journalist Ronan Farrow with his mother Mia. Photograph: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

“I was disappointed to learn through press reports that Hachette, my publisher, acquired Woody Allen’s memoir after other major publishers refused to do so and concealed the decision from me and its own employees while we were working on Catch and Kill – a book about how powerful men, including Woody Allen, avoid accountability for sexual abuse,” he said in a statement, adding that he could no longer work with Hachette “in good conscience”.

His mother, Mia Farrow, said in a statement that Hachette’s decision to publish her former partner’s memoir “provides yet another example of the profound privilege that power, money and notoriety afford”.

Hachette staff followed suit, with one employee saying that executives’ decision to buy the rights constituted a “huge conflict of interest”. Last Friday, the company cancelled publication of the book, and said it would return all rights to the author. “The decision to cancel Mr Allen’s book was a difficult one. At HBG we take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Horror writer Stephen King said he was ‘uneasy’ about Hachette’s decision. Photograph: Leigh Vogel/WireImage

Hachette said it was committed to “making sure every day in our work that different voices and conflicting points of views can be heard”, but also prides itself on “a stimulating, supportive and open work environment”.

But that decision infuriated some. In a series of tweets, King wrote: “If you think he’s a paedophile, don’t buy the book. Don’t go to his movies. Don’t go listen to him play jazz at the Carlyle. Vote with your wallet ... In America, that’s how we do it.”

Stephen King (@StephenKing) If you think he's a pedophile, don't buy the book. Don't go to his movies. Don't go listen to him play jazz at the Carlyle. Vote with your wallet...by withholding it. In America, that's how we do. https://t.co/znGZu0wJEF

However, the author also had a further message: “Let me add that it was fucking tone-deaf of Hachette to want to publish Woody Allen’s book after publishing Ronan Farrow’s.”

Glanville says of the staff at Hachette who walked out last week that they were clearly thinking they were “doing the right thing morally – protesting against the publication of a book by a man who has been accused of abusing his own child”. But, noting that Allen was investigated on two occasions and was never charged, she said that there was “no acceptable reason” for not publishing the book. “The staff at Hachette who walked out were not behaving like publishers; they were acting as censors.”

Making freedom of speech decisions based on the energetic moral outrage of the #MeToo movement had come to be seen as a good thing, Glanville concluded, and “shutting things down, keeping the wrong kind of views off the platform, has come to be admired”.

* This article was amended on 11 March 2020 because an earlier version incorrectly stated that Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill won the Pulitzer prize. To clarify: the book followed on from Farrow’s reporting on Weinstein in the New Yorker, for which that newspaper was honoured by a Pulitzer, shared jointly with the New York Times.