Recommendations aren't the same as search results. Is she making up her Amazon recommendation shadowban? Was she misinformed? Is/was there a shadowban, but o

Recommendations aren't the same as search results. Is she making up her Amazon recommendation shadowban? Was she misinformed? Is/was there a shadowban, but one caused by third parties manipulating Amazon's ranking signals rather than by Amazon's own minions? Maybe. I have no idea. However, just try to search for "When Harry Became Sally". When you discover that you can't find it, you might be curious to know why Amazon decided to censor it, not by deranking it in searches or recommendations, but by outright refusing to sell it at all (after initially offering it for sale).[1] Amazon has a history of problems with rankings for culturally sus books. There were issues about a decade ago with certain feminist and LGBT books getting flagged as adult and therefore downranked or hidden. Whether they did that intentionally (with human intervention) or whether it was an automatic result of signals, doesn't matter, though the fact that books with a LGBT flavor were adult-flagged while straight-flavored books weren't either goes to willful conduct or horrifically inadequate algorithms. The pattern of Shrier's allegation now is similar to the problem back then, although the content is different. The moral panic back then was people (particularly minors) unwittingly stumbling across adult content. The moral panic today is anything critical of LGBTQ++. [1] https://www.encounterbooks.com/features/statement-on-amazon/ https://www.encounterbooks.com/features/statement-on-amazon/