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#biasfail

April 15, 2009 00:47 by author

I've already wasted far too much time on this #amazonfail thing. But this guest post by Mary Hodder of Dabble.com was just too easy a target to pass up. The last few paragraphs really make the bulk of her point so I'm going to quote those and address each one.

This of course doesn’t explain how the problem arose two months ago, and why when Amazon was notified, they didn’t look into it then. I would suggest that the same underlying assumptions that drove their classification and algorithm system to be built to filter “gay” into “adult” also led their investigations in February and March to lead to nothing. It was only public outrage this past weekend that caused them to look harder, beyond their own assumptions, to find the underlying problem.

Well, to be fair, if you click on the link you'll find the author of that post didn't really try hard to get heard. I received a damaged book a while back, sent it back to Amazon for the replacement and then got charged for 2 copies. The run around I went through with Amazon very closely resembles the author's experience. So I don't think Amazon was trying to ignore or discriminate against him.

Also to be fair, the public outrage hasn't necessarily accomplished anything that we know of. Right now Amazon has just made a brilliant PR move in that they apologized and then claimed the glitch impacted a number of books too large for anyone to verify. Doing that means no one can really know what they did or when they've fixed it.

I don't doubt Amazon will restore the sales rank of some books. My point is just to show that Amazon is walking the line between offending two opposing camps and their only real desire is to keep making money from both of them. Not to purposely discriminate against anyone (if they wanted to discriminate they could do a lot worse)

The bar for ethics in creating algorithms and classification systems should be very high. #AmazonFail proved it’s not, at least at Amazon. I would venture that Amazon’s classification and algorithm system have more of these discriminatory assumptions, and while their tagging system does allow users to correct for some of this, Amazon is using it’s internal classification system in it’s filters, not user tagging, that I can tell.

Here's where we get to the meat of the problem. Ms. Hodder is saying "the bar should be set high" but what she really means is "the bar should be set where I want it." I don't particularly agree with them but I know several fundamentalist Christians who would consider Amazon's "glitch" to be setting the bar high.

Which again brings me to my point: There are two camps in a culture war here and Amazon's just trying to stay neutral.

Because the truth is a lot of their customers consider all material regarding Gays and Lesbians to be "adult" material. Now obviously Ms. Hodder thinks that's wrong and would like Amazon to ignore those people. But she should at least be honest with herself and realize doing that isn't removing bias from the algorithm it's just putting her bias in place of the bias that's there.

While the bias that's there (post-"glitch") is Amazon's best attempt to make everyone happy (flawed as it might be)

I would suggest that the company, because of its position in the market and power over both authors and publishers, as well as users and the intellectual marketplace of idea, ought to be doing a complete and public review of their classification and algorithm assumptions. Publishers and authors should push for it, and so should users.

Right, because that info wouldn't be proprietary or anything.

That aside this just completes the thought from the last paragraph. All ranking algorithms have bias. That's by definition. Amazon is a company that wants to appeal to every side so they are trying to target the center. Which is exactly what they should be doing.

The reality is companies have an external review process and it's called their sales. If they discriminate against Gay and Lesbian material they'll find they lose sales of that material. At that point you can consider them "publicly reviewed"

Addendum: One point I forgot to make. Some would argue that the authors are penalized if Amazon removes the sales rank from their book. Ms. Hodder points out that the first result you get after searching under homosexuality is "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality" (which I'm sure is in part due to the aforementioned "glitch"). Honestly, I consider this a bit of a non-issue. For this to hurt authors someone would have to search for the term, get that result and then just conclude no books exist. Does that seem likely? Or does it seem more likely that the person would just find another online book store and repeat the search?

2nd Addendum: Last One, I Swear, but this is important. If you want companies to be more transparent you have to accept the reasonable compromises they have to make to stay in business. It's unreasonable to expect Amazon to take a side in the culture wars.

3rd Addendum: Yeah, I said the 2nd would be the last one, sue me. But it seems from the comments I didn't make one point clear so I wanted to elaborate. This post is based on the assumption that Amazon is at least trying to treat homosexual books in the same way as heterosexual books. That's what their public statements indicate and I'm choosing to take them at their word. The issue I'm addressing is Ms. Hodder's contention that Amazon has some built in bias that they can't control and that the answer to that bias is to let her and other members of the public decide which books are acceptable. So the issue here isn't "does Amazon discriminate" it's "who should get to make the decision on what is discrimination". My contention is that Amazon should get to make it's own decisions based on it's customer base.

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April 15. 2009 04:04

"Because the truth is a lot of their customers consider all material regarding Gays and Lesbians to be "adult" material."

In a world where libraries and booksellers alike are supposed to be neutral, this is considered to be acceptable?

In 1933, a certain creed of people in Europe also considered certain types of books should be removed from the public domain, and they burned them. Was that "a reasonable compromise" just because some of their "customers" believed it to be so?

Jon C

April 15. 2009 06:33

US librarians appear to have the opposite problem; they genuflect to "Heather Has Two Mommies" and have brought the culture wars into the library by championing this and similar books over the objections of patrons. Yet, the taxes of both the pro- and anti-homosexual citizens pay for the services of the library. However, a bookseller whose main purpose is to make money should be (and more than likely is) carrying whatever will sell. Conflating libraries (where taxes subsidize service) and booksellers (with a profit motive) confuses the issue. With the culture wars at this level of toxicity, how do you balance the needs of the community? And, bringing in book burning, when the original issue is 'How easy is it to find my material?' is simply pouring kerosene, since the books were available to be purchased, not ashes at all.

April 15. 2009 07:00

<i>Which again brings me to my point: There are two camps in a culture war here and Amazon's just trying to stay neutral. </i>

Okay, I'll call the 2 camps Conservative and Liberal, as a quick shorthand.

When Amazon strips the rankings off GLBTQ books, that's "pro-Conservative."

If Amazon ever were to strip the rankings off anti-gay books (like books on how to "cure" homosexuality, or biographies of anti-gay crusaders), that would be "pro-Liberal."

Back when Amazon didn't strip rankings off anything, but let customer preference be the guide to what should be shown for particular searches, that WAS neutral. That's what neutrality in the culture wars looks like.

We don't see it often, so some people think the pro-Conservative stance is neutral, but realistically it's not. Neutral is when both sides are treated the same way.

<i>For this to hurt authors someone would have to search for the term, get that result and then just conclude no books exist.</i>

Which is pretty much what would happen if I searched on Amazon and came up dry. What would have happened before I knew about AmazonFail, anyway.

Cat Faber

April 15. 2009 07:18

@ Jon C: Couple things here, on Amazon my point really is that it doesn’t matter what I consider acceptable. They are trying to find something that offends the least amount of people and that is what I want companies to do. As RW points out above, they aren’t denying access to anything here and assuming their “glitch” was in fact a mistake and that they will re-SalesRank non-sexually based material I think that’s the best compromise they can make.

On what I consider acceptable I was always told that accepting those who don’t believe like I do is mandatory in a free society. Because inherent in my freedom to accept an idea is another person’s right to not accept that idea (because otherwise I’m not free to make a choice)

More importantly, I believe that acceptance is the cornerstone of a free society because I understand that people I don’t agree with are, at times, in power and I wouldn’t want them making my beliefs unacceptable. In other words, if you think you have the right to deem someone else’s opinion unacceptable than you have to accept it when they believe the same about yours. Which means they could one day have political power to take your right to believe away. To me that would be unacceptable and that’s why I believe we all need to accept each other’s beliefs.

Last point. The beauty of a system in which everyone is free to believe what they wish is that we all have a chance to persuade each other. I have many Gay friends and what I’m always telling them is this: The way to acceptance isn’t by calling other’s beliefs unacceptable. It’s in hearning them out and then convincing them that their beliefs are wrong.

Tom

April 15. 2009 07:25

@cat – But you see allowing all the books in isn’t neutral. I mean, lets not beat around the bush on this policy. Amazon is doing this because the parents of younger people complained. So the two sides here are "allow all books" and "allow none of these books". Which means allowing all of these books to be listed isn’t neutral because the other constituency gets nothing.

Again, do I find marking all LGBT related books "adult" an acceptable solution? No. But I understand Amazon’s need to mark some as adult and as long as they have a similar policy for heterosexual literature I’m ok with it.

Tom

April 15. 2009 19:29

First, you do understand that Amazon did not treat the heterosexually sexist, erotic, sex-laden books the same way they treated even scientific texts (Fausto-Sterling's "Sexing the Body" was on the hit-list).

But I think you've missed the point here. I agree that it's Amazon's business to run as they see fit, and if they want to alienate not just LGBT book-buyers, but people concerned with the freedom to read, think, and speak as they please, it's certainly their right. You argue, though, that Holder merely replaces one bias for another. That's just not the case insofar as Holder is arguing for a principle that transcends decisions about individual texts--namely, the principle that books should be freely available to people who want to read them--and not for an ideological stance with respect to liberalism, homosexuality, or anything else that would inform "bias." Her point is a good one: if you want people to trust your algorithm and believe it will return results that fit your interests in, say, intersexed children, you will set the bar high. That's not equivalent to saying "set it where I want it." It is a reasonable and not particularly radical claim about responsibility and transparency.

As for libraries, the comparison is better than you will allow. Conservative moms have always fretted about libraries and refused to accept librarians who, while not "genuflecting" at gay-themed literature, stock the books because librarians are librarians and that's what they can and should do. My tax money funded the purchase of Rush Limbaugh's books, which pisses me off. But I'll still take my kid to the library. I'll just have to explain that some books really are bad and it would be better for his soul if he didn't read them.

In any case, I would argue that Amazon has a stronger obligation than most businesses have to be honest and open about sales rankings, just as Barnes and Noble has stronger obligation than other businesses to stock books that some people find offensive.

Finally, if the christian right wants to go to bookstores that do not offend the sensibilities, they can shop at specialty stores, of which there are plenty. If Amazon wants to become the world's biggest specialty store (linking my preferences only to books that won't offend the delicate sensibilities of the homophobic homeschoolers), then they should just say that and see how things go.

I think their response to the situation has been atrocious.

BP43606

April 15. 2009 19:52

@BP43606: Ok, try this. You said “if the christian right wants to go to bookstores that do not offend the sensibilities, they can shop at specialty stores, of which there are plenty”

Which is fair enough. But don’t you see how they could think the same thing about you? Isn’t your whole point here that Amazon’s treatment of LGBT books offends your sensibilities?

See, that’s the whole problem here. People in this argument aren’t seeing outside their own heads so Amazon looks like a bad guy. But if you look at it from Amazon’s position they are trying desperately not to offend anyone. Did you read their apology? It was basically an attack on themselves (Again, they say they will hold books on homosexuality to the same standard as heterosexual based ones and that any discrepancy was a “glitch”)

One more point here. You said…

“That's just not the case insofar as Holder is arguing for a principle that transcends decisions about individual texts--namely, the principle that books should be freely available to people who want to read them--and not for an ideological stance with respect to liberalism, homosexuality, or anything else that would inform "bias."

But that’s just not true. In fact, she points out that she was offended by the first book that came up when searching under the term “homosexuality”. Beyond that an algorithm that ranks books must have a bias by definition. Whether it be to sales, interest or what have you. It’s inherent in the act of ranking things.

Tom

April 15. 2009 22:53

We don't see it often, so some people think the pro-Conservative stance is neutral, but realistically it's not. Neutral is when both sides are treated the same way.

comforter down

April 15. 2009 23:29

@Comforter: I wouldn't say that. I think the pro-conservative stance would be to ban any material that refers to homosexuality and I don't think most independents or liberal/progressives would consider that neutral. On the issue of political ideaology here's how I see this breaking down.

If you look at the very definition of Liberalism it’s (according to Wikipedia) “a broad class of political philosophies that considers individual liberty and equality to be the most important political goals.” Notice equality.

Speaking in general terms those are the core values of Liberal/Progressives. They believe in equality above all else. Conservatives on the other hand believe in the value based system that has existed in the past (usually based around a Religion but not always).

So in this case an extreme Conservative is someone who feels adult material should be hidden away and that the definition of adult material extends to any mention of homosexuality. While the extreme Liberal/Progressive case would be that all literature should be treated equally regardless of content.

That, in my mind, is what makes Amazon’s choice the middle ground (defining “adult” as material with sex themes and hide those items away while allowing any other items).

Tom

April 16. 2009 01:02

Tom,

Read what you wrote again, and think about it...should Amazon treat gay people differently because SOME conservatives might be offended? That's like saying blacks should be treated differently because some white racists might be offended.

Bigotry and discrimination should never be acceded to. If this were about "adult" material then why were the Playboy centerfold books not censored?

Robert

April 16. 2009 06:03

@Robert: First, Amazon isn’t saying they’ll treat LGBT books any differently here. The question is whether they are truly doing that or whether there’s some secret built in bias (and I don’t know about the Playboy book you mentioned but I’d think that should be in the adult section).

Second, you equate “treating people different” with “these people are bad” and I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Amazon shows me a bunch of computer books on the front page, doesn’t that mean their discriminating against me based on my past purchases? Does that mean they think I’m a bad person? Of course not.

As a centrist I believe this is the great lie of the left. That you can somehow eliminate discrimination. But you can’t.

Let me give you an example. If you are a landlord and you need to sell an apartment here in Los Angeles County it is illegal to discriminate against a person based on their sexual orientation. The LGBT community thinks of that as a huge victory. But it’s not. Why? Because it’s still legal for someone to discriminate against you for any other reason (other than a few more protected classes like religion, those with a disability, etc…)

So he can’t discriminate against Gays but if he doesn’t like your shoes or hates guys with mustaches he CAN discriminate based on that. This in turn means HE CAN discriminate against gay people as long as he’s smart enough to come up with some other explanation.

As far as discrimination goes all you can do is set a standard and hope people try to follow the spirit of it. As far as I can tell, Amazon's public statements that they will attempt to treat heterosexual books in the same way as homosexual books shows they want to live up to a standard of not discriminating against gays folks. B

Tom

April 16. 2009 22:20

First, Amazon is very large, and thus their sales rank is widely accepted as a barometer of a book's marketability, both by Amazon's customers and also other booksellers. The removal of an Amazon sales rank is likely to cause economic harm to the author and publisher.

Second, by the objective standard, there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. There is nothing inherent in homosexuality that harms anyone. It is only the moral relativity of religion that is the bad actor here. In my opinion, an ethical business should consider the needs of their customers on their rational merits, not superstition. Neutrality is selling every economically viable book they can, without regard to its content.

Third, computers do not evaluate the content of books, people do. So whatever policy Amazon needs to ethically evaluate the suitability of books for its readers is not in place. They seem to have no intention of creating one, either. So, I cannot feel confident that the books Amazon offers are sufficiently comprehensive and without bias, thus Amazon fails to meet my needs as a bookseller.

Finally, Amazon apparently admits it made a mistake, but has failed to apologize in any meaningful way. So, to the Christian zealots, Amazon fails. And to reasonable people, Amazon fails. Their business and public relations practice leaves much to be desired.

Therefore, I have canceled my accounts with them, and will no longer do business with them. This is somewhat painful for me, as I find them very convenient. However, I cannot reward a company that cannot behave ethically; making excuses for them will not help them to recognize and resolve their issues. I am confident that this is the best decision for me and for Amazon.

Dave

April 16. 2009 22:38

@Dave - First you'll have to forgive me for not addressing your points in more detail. Honestly I think it falls into what I've been saying the whole way down the line which is that you aren't seeing other's beliefs from their perspective.

For example, There's nothing inherently irrational about Religion. Though there have been many smart atheists in the past there's no question that the majority of great minds over the last couple hundred years have believed in a deity of some kind (and might I direct you to my own About Me page for my take on religion)

But the one thing I do have to address is when you say Amazon hasn't apologized. This is straight from Amazon's statement...

"This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future."

That seems like contrition to me. If you do come back to this again I'd be curious to know what you didn't like about that (or what you think they should have said)

Tom

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About Me

Hi, I’m Tom and I run the IT department for a non-profit agency which provides treatment to special-needs children. Though I will (like any blogger) comment on technology in general my main goal is to detail how I’m trying to use technology to help treat the children we serve and its my hope that blogging will allow me to connect with people who can help in that goal.

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