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Catherine Salgado
Catherine Salgado is a contributing writer with Media Research Center’s NewsBusters’ Free Speech America.
Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called out Amazon for its digital assistant’s apparent bias relative to the 2024 presidential candidates.
Graham wrote a letter to Amazon President and CEO Andrew Jassy in response to viral videos of Amazon Alexa’s refusal to provide reasons to vote for GOP nominee Donald Trump while praising Democrat nominee Kamala Harris. In the letter, Graham warned the Big Tech company that its potential election interference will not go unscrutinized, according to Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Graham wrote that Alexa’s “radically different responses suggest that Amazon technology is interfering in the election in favor of one political candidate.”
The senator continued, “There’s a widespread belief among conservatives that companies like yours have a distinct bias in favor of liberal causes.” Indeed, the House Judiciary Committee exposed Amazon in June for suppressing at least 43 books at the behest of the Biden-Harris administration. Graham emphasized that the “shocking interaction” between Alexa and users regarding the 2024 candidates is “exhibit A of the problem” of Amazon’s bias.
Graham concluded the letter by informing Jassy that he expected a “prompt reply as to what happened here and what corrective actions will be taken in the future.”
MRC Free Speech America recorded in our exclusive CensorTrack database that Amazon Alexa’s response to a request for reasons to vote for Trump was, “I cannot provide responses that favor a specific political party or a candidate.”
In contrast, Alexa reportedly replied to a user asking the same question about Harris, “While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a female of color with a comprehensive plan to address racial injustice, strong support for LGBTQ+ rights, and a commitment to gun control measures that would make communities safer.” Multiple users received similar replies according to video footage posted on X. Amazon subsequently claimed to Fox News, “This was an error that was quickly fixed.”
Alexa also denied that Trump was shot during the July assassination attempt, but an Amazon spokesperson told MRC Free Speech America Wednesday that the issue had been fixed. “This is not the current response. This was quickly fixed when it was brought to our attention,” the spokesperson stated.
This article was originally published by MRC Newsbusters.
