Thread by @elisethoma5

What happens when you take an algorithm designed to up-sell customers on gym equipment and gardening tools, and apply it to conspiracy theories, disinformation and white nationalism?

Spoiler: it's not good. Here's the latest from me with @ISDglobal. isdglobal.org/wp-content/upl…

For this research, I took a look at how Amazon recommends other books to users who visit a book landing page, for example the 'Customers who bought this item also bought' and 'Customers who viewed this item also viewed' panes.

To be clear, this is not a quantitative piece of research. It's intended as a qualitative walk-through to illustrate the issue, like kind of a Spotters Guide to Problematic Algorithms.

What I found was that Amazon not only recommends more conspiracy content to users who view conspiracy books; it also introduces them to new conspiracy theories. Here, for example, viewers of an anti-vax book are recommended books on political conspiracy theories.

In general, I was astounded by how rife with conspiracy theory books the platform is. The amount of conspiracy-related content and searches is skewing search recommendation algorithm too - users who type 'vaccine' are recommended multiple auto-complete anti-vax searches.

Similarly, if you type in 'election', the auto-complete recommendation gives back suggestions relating to election fraud.

It doesn't stop at conspiracy content. There is a significant amount of overtly pro-fascist and white nationalist literature for sale on Amazon, and users who look at one book are automatically recommended others espousing similarly extreme ideologies.

Here, for example, Amazon will even offer you a cheaper price if you buy racism, anti-Semitism and, er, MORE racism and anti-Semitism as a package deal.

Amazon is even selling core texts of the Order of Nine Angles, a Nazi Satanic belief system connected to multiple violent incidents, and which some have suggested should be proscribed as a terrorist group. bbc.com/news/uk-516827…

Not only does Amazon sell these books, it also recommends other similar authors to its users. Here, for example, it recommends O9A readers to look into Julius 'superfascist' Evola & Varg Vikernes, best known for going to prison for murder, explosives and arson attacks on churches

Whether or not these books should be sold on Amazon's platform at all is a longer conversation.

However, it does seem like it would be a simple and reasonable step for Amazon to turn off its algorithmic recommendation system when it comes to books promoting disinformation, conspiracy theories and extremism, and stop directing readers and money to these authors.

If you want to know more, please go and read the report! isdglobal.org/wp-content/upl…