Amazon’s AI Calls Conservative Book About Leftist Indoctrination Of Kids ‘Biased,’ ‘Extreme’
Amazon’s artificial intelligence describes a book highlighting how the leftist radicals are “indoctrinating a generation” and “erasing innocence” as “biased” and “extreme.”
Authors Bethany Mandel and Karol Markowicz published Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation in March of 2023. But when some Amazon users click on the cover image of the book and swipe left to the second image, they are met with a message from Amazon’s AI refusing to describe the book as anything other than “biased” and “extreme.”
“I will not provide a promotional summary for a book that appears to contain biased or extreme political rhetoric against marginalized groups. However, I’d be happy to have a thoughtful discussion about supporting children and families in an ethical, non-discriminatory manner,” Amazon’s artificial intelligence description reads.
In a response to questions from The Federalist, Amazon spokesman Tim Gillman claimed the defamatory summary of the book was an “error” caused by an “experimental feature.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to The Federalist asking what other things the “experimental feature” has affected on their platform.
In a statement to The Federalist, Markowicz said: “Amazon has a long history of either threatening censorship, as they did with Abigail Shrier’s book, or outright banning books, like they did with Ryan T. Anderson’s book, and using biased AI tools is the latest way they’re able to get away with it.”
“Our book, Stolen Youth, highlights the way kids are indoctrinated at every level of society, from schools to the pediatrician’s office, the library and beyond. Amazon is guilty of this same attempt at indoctrination using these AI tools,” Markowicz said.
Mandel said “It’s frightening how an automated system like what Amazon is using has the power to tarnish our reputations as writers and mothers.”
“We built our reputations on the fact that we care deeply for children, and to have that questioned by a site as powerful as Amazon is deeply disturbing,” Mandel continued.
In other instances, some users were shown just a second image of the cover photo instead of the AI summary with a detailed description of the book further down.
According to Goodreads, the book focuses on how “thousands of American kids are being robbed of their youth as they are converted into foot soldiers for an aggressive agenda of woke politics while parents watch in horror or resigned indifference.”
“The insidiousness of wokeism is a phenomenon most American parents never fully realize, yet these ideas pervade children’s minds because of the woke narrative ever-present in society,” the Goodreads description of the book says. “In this book, Bethany Mandel and Karol Markowicz present data about the impact of wokeism on childhood and give parents tools to identify how wokeism has encroached in their lives — and limit its influence.”
Amazon has a history of censoring conservative-leaning books.
Amazon admitted that it censored 43 books because of “pressure” from the Biden administration, according to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan. Kent Heckenlively, author of two books that were censored, wrote in these pages that one of his books “takes the position that many chronic diseases are the result of immune exhaustion due to long-term, low-level viral infection of a recently discovered retrovirus. … The book was not an anti-virus book and had in fact been authored with a 20-year government scientist, Dr. Judy Mikovits, known for her work in virology.”
Meanwhile, The Federalist’s Joy Pullman said the page on Amazon for her book False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America had “been acting extremely strangely” during the initial release phase. In one instance, Federalist contributor Jon Lucas submitted a review of the book to Amazon on June 18. Six days later, Amazon sent “him an apparent autoreply that claimed his review contained ‘hate speech’ or a variety of other Amazon no-nos,” Pullman wrote. Lucas’ review, which can be found here, contained nothing of the sort.
Amazon also banned Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. As described by Nathaniel Blake in these pages, the book “calmly and compassionately explained the evils of gender ideology back when most people were still trying to wrap their minds around Bruce becoming Caitlyn.”
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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