4757

Yes, and yes.

4758

This is the sort of thing I expect from the thread title. Although I don’t know enough about the speaker to say “yep, geen-yoo-ein libural”, I can unambiguously say “Democrat” that holds actual power, and “unambiguously stupid shit”.

So that’s what the kids mean by “ratio’d”…

4759

Normally he’s pretty good, but he stepped in it this time.

4760
4761

The letter is pretty reasonable:

I think this twitter rando just became confused by her long sentences. I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure it is indeed possible to violate the law by selling products that falsely claim to cure a medical condition or provide protection but do not actually do so.

4762

It does seem to be a perfectly reasonable letter. It asks Amazon to consider policy changes to remove books with harmful anti-Covid-vaccine content, as Amazon has already done with books that had false claims linking childhood vaccination to autism, and books claiming LGBT people suffer from mental illness. And it asks them to provide information on their policies on Covid-related products and how Amazon promotes them.

4763

Misleading commercial speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

4764

Ari Cohen actually IS a first amendment lawyer.

And no, man, it is not illegal to sell books that say things, even if the government thinks those things are wrong. The fundamental basis of the first amendment is that the government is not allowed to dictate what can and cannot be presented as speech.

Just because you think that the government’s position here is scientific, or correct, regarding something like covid information, that does not mean that others do not have first amendment protections to say otherwise.

Consumers can protest Amazon doing these things, but the government cannot threaten or punish then for it.

4765

Yeah, the false advertising statues in the FTC code are mostly focused on preventing false health claims. It’s entirely possible that one could construe Amazon’s search algorithms as advertising (because Amazon specifically sells search priority as advertising) and thus is subject to regulation under those statutes. There is no question that the FTC is allowed to regulate this, nor that it is illegal to make false health claims in advertising.

4766

Are we supposed to be outraged at Elizabeth Warren for the letter, or Ari Cohn for not knowing how to parse English? I’m confused.

4767

Warren’s letter is referring to books that supposedly contain covid misinformation. These books would not be considered commercial speech.

4768

EDIT: I was an idiot and typed this before actually reading all of Warren’s letter. Left as a lesson in the danger of hasty responses.
Warren’s letter says nothing about books. It’s only Ari’s gloss that mentions books. Warren’s letter only mentions search results and Best Seller algorithms.

4769

From warren’s letter:

When staff searched for terms “COVID-19” and “vaccine,” the first result, presented
prominently in the top left corner of the screen, was a book by Joseph Mercola and Ronnie
Cummins called “The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine
Passports, and the New Normal.” Dr. Mercola has been described as “the most influential
spreader of coronavirus misinformation online.”11 Not only was this book the top result when
searching either “COVID-19” or “vaccine” in the categories of “All Departments” and “Books”;

4770

OK you’re right I was wrong. It does talk extensively about books. I’d only read the screencap.

That said, the letter is still all about search results and not about the fact that Amazon is selling those books.

4771

I think there’s some confusion both here and on Twitter over this sentence:

earlier this year, I wrote regarding concerns that the company is
providing consumers with false and misleading information about FDA-authorized KN95
masks.1 This pattern and practice of misbehavior suggests that Amazon is either unwilling or
unable to modify its business practices to prevent the spread of falsehoods or the sale of
inappropriate products—an unethical, unacceptable, and potentially unlawful course of action
from one of the nation’s largest retailers.

I’m terrible at sentence diagramming, but I’ll do my best to describe what’s going on here. You have two items in the first phrase:

  1. "the spread of falsehoods "
  2. “the sale of inappropriate products”

which she then describes as
A) unethical
B) unacceptable
C) potentially unlawful course of action

It is ambiguous whether each the of the negatives A, B, and C apply to each of the items 1 and 2. E.g. she could be saying that 1A and 1B (it is unethical and unacceptable to be profiting off COVID misinformation), as well as 2A, 2B, and 2C (it is unethical and unacceptable and potentially illegal to sell people mis-labeled masks). That’s a perfectly valid statement and interpretation.

If you’re looking for clicks and Twitter clout though you could look at the sentence in the worst possible light and say that she’s trying to ban books. That interpretation doesn’t really jibe with the rest of her letter, where she “asks” and “requests” information about how Amazon’s algo is working, but doesn’t have any legal threats or mention any sort of criminal or civil proceedings or government action.

4772

Oh and some more context: 6 months ago Warren sent a similar letter to Amazon about how their algo made it difficult for people to find/purchase FDA approved masks:

of which the meat is:

The staff investigation found:
-Amazon’s search algorithm is promoting sponsored products that are not authorized by the FDA, placing them near the top of search results even when customers specifically search for FDA-authorized masks.
-Amazon often does not clearly indicate if masks have received FDA authorizations, and leaves out key information, like manufacturers and model numbers, that consumers need to determine whether a mask is FDA-authorized.
-Amazon’s quality control standards do not appear to be sufficient to prevent consumers from being sold masks that are counterfeit or are not authorized by the FDA.

Which I believe is what the current letter is referencing when it talks about ““the sale of inappropriate products”.

4773

These books are ranked highly because lots of idiots want to buy books about conspiracy theories, and lots of conspiracy theorists are effective at monetizing their bullshit. Warren apparently has a problem with books that sell well being described as bestsellers.

This is just normal political posturing by Warren. Really this belongs more in the cancel culture thread as it touches on the increasingly censorious nature of the left and the desire to co-opt powerful non-state actors into this censorship.

I would much rather congress pass a law regulating books making medical claims than see this kind of behaviour, but ultimately Amazon will ignore Warren so I guess it’s not a big deal.

4774

4775

I mean you mock, but the number of people saying the government should outlaw Fox News and the like is very high.

Of course it just seems like nothing because the Right has decided it’s half of their entire existence to censor speech and they want to ban people saying mean things about them and the like. Certainly several factors worse than what you generally see on the Left, imo, but that doesn’t make the would be liberal censors not censorious.

4776

That depends on the nature of the misinformation and the relationship to the author.

A book that tried to persuade readers to buy a drug with which the author has commercial ties could certainly be considered commercial speech. And it’s possible that some books on Amazon meet those criteria. It’s not like books are automatically exempt by virtue of their word count.