Study: Amazon algorithms promote vaccine misinformation
SEATTLE — As vaccine misinformation has prompted some to say they will refuse to be inoculated against the coronavirus, the world’s largest online retailer remains a hotbed for anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, according to a new study by University of Washington researchers.
Amazon’s search algorithm boosts books promoting false claims about vaccines over those that debunk health misinformation, the researchers found — and as customers engage with products espousing bogus science, Amazon’s recommendation algorithms point them to additional health misinformation.
Amazon is a “marketplace of multifaceted health misinformation,” wrote co-authors Prerna Juneja, a Ph.D. student at UW’s Information School, and professor of social computing Tanu Mitra in the new paper, which will be presented at a conference on human-computer interaction in May.
The top eight search results Thursday afternoon for the phrase “vaccine” in
Amazon’s online bookstore, for instance, were vaccine denialist tomes — including books like “Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe and Effective is Lying,” by the British conspiracy theorist Vernon Coleman, and “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan,” a book purporting to show a nonexistent causal relationship between vaccination and autism co-authored by Oregon physician Paul Thomas.
The Oregon Medical Board last year suspended Thomas’ license for misleading parents about vaccine safety and failing to adequately vaccinate patients, including a child who later contracted tetanus and was hospitalized for 57 days.
“This book confirmed everything I have suspected about vaccines,” one verified purchaser commented earlier this week below Coleman’s book, which is sold by Amazon.com. “Read this book!”
In the context of the ongoing mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign, “battling against anti-vax misinformation has never been more important,” Juneja said in an interview Thursday. “This is the most urgent time.”