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> If I have to rate my digital content surely Amazon shouldn't be selling sodium-nitrite to minors as they unlikely to use it for preserving processed meats. D
by fuckstick 4y ago
> If I have to rate my digital content surely Amazon shouldn't be selling sodium-nitrite to minors as they unlikely to use it for preserving processed meats.
Did you actually think about this for more than a second.
Despite all this moral panic bullshit I would wager the majority of minors purchasing sodium nitrite are doing so for its legitimate uses. Teenagers with cooking or aquarium hobbies are not that rare - sodium nitrite suicides seem to have been in the single to low double digits for most countries - which when they report 150 to 200 percent increases over the year sounds all the more sensational.
This is stupid. Might as well ban ropes.
Some of you might want to look up the stats on intentional and unintentional Tylenol toxicity and number of deaths - it is 1000s and 100s more respectively.
- amilios 4y agoThe article says that the Amazon recommendation algorithm was also recommending along with the sodium nitrite, "a scale to measure a lethal dose, a drug to prevent vomiting, and a book with instructions on how to use the chemical to attempt suicide". This is beyond just suggesting the chemical itself, this is almost suggesting to certain users to commit suicide.
- x86x87 4y agoThe way I imagine this working is: you buy X,Y and Z. If enough people buy these together (along with other things) the algo will deduce that if you buy X you also probably want Y and Z. It will recommend them. This is not new and there are plenty examples.
- fuckstick 4y agoI mean I don’t automatically believe this bullshit based on the source - it’s coming from a law firm with very specific priorities in producing a narrative. Having known about 60 minutes scandals over the years I am just as likely to believe they withheld this story because the facts didn’t even meet their questionable standards. Some emotional grieving parents and a law firm are all you need to them turn that into another media circus. Maybe their recommendation system was aggregating. Or maybe it was just suggesting specific things the user had viewed or purchased recently. I’ll withhold judgement until less charged “facts” are out in the open. For a forum that so often likes to cite Gell Man amnesia - how about fucking now?
- SamPatt 4y agoSerious question: do you think the bundling of products increases the chance of people committing suicide? Since these suicides are planned, it doesn't seem like needing to buy the products individually presents much of a safeguard.