English

Auditing E-Commerce Platforms for Algorithmically Curated Vaccine Misinformation

Human-Computer Interaction 2021-02-02 v2 Computers and Society

Abstract

There is a growing concern that e-commerce platforms are amplifying vaccine-misinformation. To investigate, we conduct two-sets of algorithmic audits for vaccine misinformation on the search and recommendation algorithms of Amazon -- world's leading e-retailer. First, we systematically audit search-results belonging to vaccine-related search-queries without logging into the platform -- unpersonalized audits. We find 10.47% of search-results promote misinformative health products. We also observe ranking-bias, with Amazon ranking misinformative search-results higher than debunking search-results. Next, we analyze the effects of personalization due to account-history, where history is built progressively by performing various real-world user-actions, such as clicking a product. We find evidence of filter-bubble effect in Amazon's recommendations; accounts performing actions on misinformative products are presented with more misinformation compared to accounts performing actions on neutral and debunking products. Interestingly, once user clicks on a misinformative product, homepage recommendations become more contaminated compared to when user shows an intention to buy that product.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.08419,
  title  = {Auditing E-Commerce Platforms for Algorithmically Curated Vaccine Misinformation},
  author = {Prerna Juneja and Tanushree Mitra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.08419},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:22:26.754Z