USA TODAY International Edition
Report finds flaw in Amazon algorithms
Amazon’s book recommendation algorithms that help customers discover new titles may have a dark side.
A new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue says these algorithms steer people to books about conspiracy theories and extremism, sometimes introducing them to the work of conspiracy theorists who’ve been banned by other platforms.
People browsing a book about one conspiracy on Amazon are likely to get suggestions for more books on that topic as well as books about other conspiracy theories about everything from QAnon to the COVID- 19 vaccine, the report found.
Other features, such as auto- complete in the search bar and content suggestions for the author or similar authors, also can lead users down an extremist rabbit hole, said Chloe Colliver, head of digital policy at the ISD.
The pattern is similar to problems observed on other major online platforms such as Google’s YouTube, whose algorithms have been found to direct users to extreme content, sucking them into violent ideologies.
“Given that vaccinations and Covid- 19 issues are currently top of mind for many, the potential for recommendation of false or extremist information about these topics is certainly concerning,” Colliver told USA TODAY. “The type of false information that was found to be recommended by Amazon’s algorithms has been shown across the globe to contribute to real- world harms.”
Colliver says the scale of the threat is hard to gauge without more transparency from Amazon, which dominates the bookselling business.
In a statement to USA TODAY, Amazon said: “We take concerns from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue seriously and are committed to providing a positive experience for our customers. Similar to other stores that sell books, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints and our shopping and discovery tools are not designed to generate results oriented to a specific point of view.”
Technology companies have taken increasingly aggressive steps to purge recommendations for extremist content that poses a public threat.
On book pages, Amazon recommends other books in several ways: “customers who bought this item also bought”; “customers who viewed this item also viewed”; and “what other items do customers view after viewing this item?” Ads sometimes appear to promote “products related to this item.”