Amazon, Waterstones algorithms promote vaccine misinformation
Occurred: January 2021
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A study (pdf) has found that Amazon has been proactively recommending a wide range of anti-vaccination, health misinformation books, apparel and other products.
Researchers at the University of Washington also found that Amazon's recommendation algorithms made matters worse by pushing users interested in these products at even more related products.
Follow-up research in the UK by Sky News found that Foyles and Waterstones online bookstores were also recommending a wide range of COVID-19 anti-vaccination and health conspiracy theory books to their users.
Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and other companies are under pressure to tackle the huge volume of online misinformation about COVID-19.
Operator: Amazon; Foyles; Waterstones
Developer: Amazon; Foyles; Watertones
Country: USA; UK; France
Sector: Retail; Health
Purpose: Recommend content
Technology: Content recommendation system
Issue: Mis/disinformation
Transparency: Black box; Governance
Research, advocacy
Juneja P., Mitra T. (2021). Auditing E-Commerce Platforms for Algorithmically Curated Vaccine Misinformation (pdf)
News, commentary, analysis
https://www.euronews.com/2021/03/05/amazon-directs-customers-to-vaccine-misinformation-study-finds
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/amazon-covid-conspiracy-books
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/jan/29/uw-study-finds-amazon-promotes-vaccine-lies-especi/
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-amazon-algorithms-vaccine-misinformation.html
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: January 2021
Last updated: January 2022