Sen. Warren Calls on Amazon to Review Touting of COVID Misinformation in Its Algorithms

Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Amazon on Wednesday in which she asked the tech giant to review company algorithms that resulted in COVID-19 misinformation being prominently featured on its site.

Addressed to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Warren's letter requested clarity on the company's high positioning of material promoting COVID-19 treatment and vaccine falsehoods in its search and "Best Seller" algorithms.

Warren said her team was first made aware of the results during the week of August 22 when they conducted Amazon searches for the terms "COVID-19," "COVID," "vaccine," "COVID 19 vaccine," and "pandemic." She said the searches returned a number of books centered around false information, with the material "consistently" appearing amongst the top results.

"As cases of COVID-19 continue to rise, Amazon is feeding misinformation
loops through its search and 'Best Seller' algorithms, potentially leading countless Americans to risk their health and the health of their neighbors based on misleading and inaccurate information that they discover on Amazon's website," Warren wrote in her letter.

One of the materials Warren's team found during their searches for "COVID-19" and "vaccine" was Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins's work entitled The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal. Warren's team said they found this book "presented prominently" in the top left corner of their screen.

Joseph Mercola, who The New York Times has called "the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online," wrote about a number of coronavirus conspiracies in his book. It presents a number of misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccines, Warren wrote, and instead urges readers to protect themselves by taking a number of vitamins that can be purchased on Mercola's website.

Along with this book, Warren said further Amazon searches yielded more works sharing apparent lies and conspiracies about vaccines, with one book, Reversing the Side Effects of the COVID-19 Vaccine, stating that the shot was created to "[make] people sick" and "suffer miscarriages."

Warren's team conducted subsequent searches on September 7 and found once again that the Mercola and the Reversing the Side Effects book appeared high on Amazon's search list, ranking among the top three results. However, the team did not find an instance of this type of material appearing in any of Amazon's "sponsored" search results.

Companies like Facebook and Twitter have taken steps to stop the spread of misinformation on their platforms, removing pages and accounts that violate user policies around propagating false information on COVID-19.

In the letter's closing, Warren asked Amazon to share its policy on listing misinformation material on its site. She also requested that the company elaborate on the nature of its algorithm and the criteria a product must meet to become a "Best Seller."

The senator also asked Amazon what actions it has taken to prevent the spread of misinformation on its site.

"Given the seriousness of this issue, I ask that you perform an immediate review of Amazon's algorithms and, within 14 days, provide both a public report on the extent to which Amazon's algorithms are directing consumers to books and other products containing COVID19 misinformation and a plan to modify these algorithms so that they no longer do so," Warren asked Jassy in the letter's close.

An Amazon spokesperson provided Newsweek with the following statement regarding Warren's letter and its efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 misinformation:

"We are constantly evaluating the books we list to ensure they comply with our content guidelines, and as an additional service to customers, at the top of relevant search results pages we link to the CDC advice on COVID and protection measures."

Updated 9/9/21, 12:38 PM ET, with a statement from Amazon.