Tag: amazon

Senator Elizabeth Warren questions Amazon on why books that contain “misinformation” are listed as bestsellers

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has joined the call in asking Amazon to provide more details on its content moderation policies over what they see as the retailer’s failure to address what she says is the spread of COVID-19 misinformation in books.

Warren accused the tech giant of promoting books and other material containing COVID-19 misinformation.

“During the week of August 22, 2021, my staff conducted sample searches on Amazon.com of pandemic-related terms such as ‘COVID-19,’ ‘COVID,’ ‘vaccine,’ ‘COVID 19 vaccine,’ and ‘pandemic,’” Sen. Warren wrote in a letter addressed to Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy. “The top results consistently included highly-ranked and favorably-tagged books based on falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures.”

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How The Amazon Web Hosting Crackdown Threatens Patreon, Substack, And You

Last week, Reuters reported based on two anonymous sources that Amazon Web Services, which controls 40 percent of web hosting in the world, “plans to take a more proactive approach to determine what types of content violate its cloud service policies.”

“Over the coming months, Amazon will hire a small group of people in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division to develop expertise and work with outside researchers to monitor for future threats, one of the sources familiar with the matter said. It could turn Amazon, the leading cloud service provider worldwide with 40% market share according to research firm Gartner, into one of the world’s most powerful arbiters of content allowed on the internet, experts say.”

Amazon declined to comment to Reuters for the story, then after the article published sent a statement insisting the report was “wrong,” claiming, “‘AWS Trust & Safety has no plans to change its policies or processes, and the team has always existed.’”

“We’ve always reserved the right to police who is allowed to speak on our internet” is not a very comforting response to an article alleging a coming content crackdown. In addition, to this post-publication claim from Amazon, “A Reuters spokesperson said the news agency stands by its reporting.”

Don’t forget the context: The Biden administration revealed a few weeks ago that they, mafia-like, pressure big tech entities like Facebook and Twitter to remove information that contradicts their political goals. (“That’s an, um, ‘misinformed’ piece of content over there on your platform. Sure would be a shame if the super-touchy Democrats controlling the entire federal government decided it was a reason to regulate and legally harass you.”)

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How Amazon’s $10 Billion Contract Squabble with the Pentagon Reveals the Shady Nature of Military Contracts

Earlier this month the US Department of Defense (DOD) canceled a $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract awarded to Microsoft in 2019. The goal of the contract was to modernize the Department’s IT operations using cloud computing.

The JEDI cancellation occurred following a lawsuit from Amazon after the company was denied the contract. Amazon alleges that they were rejected because the Department of Defense was pressured by then President Donald Trump to “screw Amazon.” The motivation for this move, it was claimed, was driven by Trump’s personal animus for then-CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.

Amazon claims insider sources responsible for the book Holding The Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis provide evidence for Trump’s direct intent to “screw Amazon,” but you need not trust another book published by Washington insiders for this story. Trump’s personal problems with Bezos, valid or not, are extremely public. Tweets targeted at Bezos’ include:

“The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon.” December 7, 2015.

“If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it!” December 7, 2015.

“Really sick to watch the Fake and totally Slanted News(?) coming out of MSDNC and CNN. It bears NO relationship to the Truth or Facts. They are merely offshoots of the DNC, much like the @nytimes and the Amazon @washingtonpost. Just like 2016, but worse. Sad, but we will win big!” June 3rd, 2020.

“Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!” August 16, 2017.

Prompted by Amazon’s lawsuit, the DOD launched an investigation that yielded a 317-page report evaluating Amazon’s allegations. The authors claimed that lack of cooperation from White House officials prevented them from reaching any clear conclusions.

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Apple bans, at Amazon’s request, app that reveals fake Amazon reviews

Calling out scammers has always been a perilous approach when it comes to tech giants.

Amazon has requested that Apple delete from its App Store the app Fakespot, a popular service that tries to uncover false reviews on Amazon.

The incident put two of the internet industry’s greatest behemoths against a small startup and Fakespot is disappointed.

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Amazon Studios ‘inclusion playbook’ includes guidelines on hiring diverse crew, avoiding “problematic” jokes

Amazon Studios has released an “Inclusion Playbook” with hard rules on writing humour and satire, going against the long-held standard that talent matters more than identity. The critical race theory-driven initiative is yet another attempt by Big Tech to reinforce and drive “equity” policies to the public. 

On Monday, Amazon Studios’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team released a playbook that sets the standards for the number of minority and underrepresented employees and characters required to create a TV show or a movie. 

The Daily Wire reports that the playbook is based on Amazon Studios’ inclusivity policy, which requires “Each film or series with a creative team of three or more people in above-the-line roles (Directors, Writers, Producers) should ideally include a minimum 30% women and 30% members of an underrepresented racial/ethnic group.” 

The company says it wants to increase these goals to 50 per cent by 2024. 

The policy calls on filmmakers to include at least one speaking character from a minority background, with half of them being women: “LGBTQIA+, person with a disability, and three regionally underrepresented race/ethnic/cultural groups.” The policy states that filmmakers can get away with having a single character (i.e. a transgender Hispanic woman in a wheelchair) to fulfill the requirement of these identities. 

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Amazon Funding Distribution of Ibram X. Kendi’s ‘Antiracist’ Books in Public Schools

Amazon spent $5,000 to distribute hundreds of copies of “antiracist” writer Ibram X. Kendi’s book to Virginia public school students as part of a program to promote black authors, according to emails between Amazon and school district officials.

The emails show Amazon employees reached out to Arlington Public Schools as part of “NeighborGood,” a program to donate $100,000 to schools and other institutions that “empower black voices and serve black communities.” Despite Amazon’s offer to purchase Kindles or other equipment, Arlington Public Schools director of diversity and inclusion Arron Gregory requested copies of Kendi’s Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. Amazon donated between 500-600 copies of the book to Wakefield High School and paid $10,000 to have Kendi’s coauthor Jason Reynolds address students.

Asra Nomani, vice president of Parents Defending Education, the watchdog group that obtained the emails through a public records request, called Amazon’s prioritization of “antiracism” efforts during a pandemic “shortsighted” in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.

“Instead of donating Kindles and hot spots to students in Arlington Public Schools, Amazon chose to spread the controversial ideology of critical race theory,” Nomani said. “The shortsighted decisions during a pandemic, with so many students vulnerable, reflect the national crisis of school districts circumventing parents to indoctrinate students—in this case, with the help of corporate America.”

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Amazon Deletes America’s Frontline Doctor’s Website from the Internet – Doctors Scramble to Salvage Site

Amerca’s Frontline Doctors, the courageous group of doctors who spoke out against the government’s irresponsible and damaging COVID responses, had their website taken down by Amazon.

The AFLDS reported:

America’s Frontline Doctors website was deleted from the Internet by Amazon.

If you didn’t know, many top websites and services, such as Netflix, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and thousands of others, are hosted on Amazon’s Internet servers.

So it came as a surprise when AFLDS received notice from Amazon that they were deleting our website–and that they were giving us less than 4 days to get it off of their server before deleting it from the Internet forever.

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How to turn off Amazon’s ability to track your movements via dormant network inside Echo and Ring security cameras

Amazon has flipped a switch that automatically enrolled millions of its users in a program that will share Internet bandwidth between neighbors – expanding the company’s ability to track devices. 

Dubbed Amazon Sidewalk, the internet-sharing program links nearby devices via Bluetooth and radio frequencies so they can stay connected to the internet via other Sidewalk-enabled devices even when disconnected from home WiFi networks. 

The program already existed inside Echo and Ring security cameras dating back to 2018 and remained dormant until Tuesday.   

While users do have the option to turn Sidewalk off, it has drawn scrutiny from critics concerned about the amount of data that will pass through devices to and from neighbors connected to it. 

There are also concerns that the program will enable Amazon to track more users outside of their individual homes.  

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Jeff Bezos’ Fake News in the Newspaper He Really Owns

Media criticism sometimes involves reading between the lines, assessing the layered meanings of journalistic rhetoric, or considering what’s left unsaid in a given conversation. But we shouldn’t be numb to all the times media problems hit you like a sock in the jaw.

That was the case when readers opened the Washington Post online recently to find a full page “native” ad—that’s the kind designed to look like news—from Amazon (Jacobin, 5/27/21). Whose owner Jeff Bezos owns the Post and soon MGM (Washington Post, 5/26/21), among much else.

Blended in with the Post‘s banner and “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tagline, readers got text about how Amazon supports a raise in the federal minimum wage and has been paying its workers $15 an hour since 2018. A big picture showed an African-American employee and her child talking about how Amazon‘s generosity is allowing them to move to a bigger home.

Never mind that, as many could tell you, the company was dragged kicking and screaming to that wage increase (Jacobin, 10/2/18); that they continue to fund groups that strenuously oppose a $15 minimum wage (Jacobin, 5/27/21), like the US Chamber of Commerce; that they have vigorously and vehemently opposed union organizing (New York Times, 3/16/21)—and that no wage can justify the dangerous and degrading conditions Amazon is reported to subject many of its workers to (Intercept, 3/25/21).

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Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors

If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device, you have only 10 days to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance.

On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don’t have connectivity and help you to their bandwidth when you don’t have a connection.

By default, Amazon devices including Alexa, Echo, Ring, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers will enroll in the system. And since only a tiny fraction of people take the time to change default settings, that means millions of people will be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not. The Amazon webpage linked above says Sidewalk “is currently only available in the US.”

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