Lawmakers called on Amazon to immediately review its algorithms and reveal the extent to which it spreads misinformation.
Democratic members of Congress, Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff, have both written to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy raising concerns about the e-commerce portal's promotion of books and products that spread misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines, National Public Radio (NPR) reports.
"Recent investigations show that Amazon's algorithms are boosting anti-vaccine products across the website over fact-based vaccine information and pushing customers toward bubbles of extreme misinformation content," Schiff wrote.
He accused the tech giant of directly benefiting from the sensationalism of anti-vaccine misinformation, while the trend of publishing conspiracy theories about vaccines, which is causing deaths from Covid-19, continues.
"As a member of Congress who is deeply concerned by the spread of vaccine hesitancy during this time of crisis, I request additional, more detailed information on Amazon's policies regarding false or misleading health information in order to identify potential needs for federal regulation," he added.
While Senator Elizabeth Warren also noted in her letter to Jassy, the top results for pandemic-related search terms on this platform "consistently included" books based on lies about Covid-19 vaccines and cures.
"When staff searched for the terms 'Covid-19' and 'vaccine,' the first result, prominently displayed in the upper left corner of the screen, was a book by Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins called 'The Truth About Covid-19: Exposure, the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal,'" Warren said in the letter to the Amazon boss.
"Dr Mercola has been described as 'the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online,'" she added.
Warren says this book perpetuates dangerous conspiracies about Covid-19 with false and misleading information about vaccines.
"He claims that vitamin C, vitamin D, and Quercetin supplements sold on Mercola's website can prevent Covid-19 infection, a claim with such little scientific basis that the FDA sent a letter instructing Mercola to stop selling these unapproved supplements and unauthorized treatment of Covid-19," she explained.
This book also claims that Covid-19 vaccines cannot be trusted, but Warren says that after every study done, they have been shown to be effective and safe.
Both US politicians called for Amazon to conduct an immediate review of its algorithms to determine the extent to which the platform is pushing users towards misinformation.
(Full article by NPR in English)