This is fascinating. Apparently the search engine at Amazon.com was prompting users who searched for "abortion" whether they meant to type "adoption," purely for intersecting reasons of technical and typographical chance. They have changed it, but similar problems are bound to crop up more often as large amounts of information are increasingly subject to user searches by algorithmic sorting of relevance.
Still, it is an excellent example of processes not directly under the control of humans coming up with results that humans perceive as holding a human bias, despite the absence of one. Welcome to the age of miscommunication between people and software.
No, Peter, this isn’t about miscommunication. It’s about a bunch of whining hypocrits who, despite all their posturing and pontificating about the importance of choice, got their panties all twisted when an algorithmic anomaly presented users with *gasp* a choice. If they wish to protect the right to abortion, that’s their prerogative; we can argue about that later. Just don’t sing the praises of choice and then freak out when someone, even accidentally, offers choices for pregnant women that don’t require blind and uncritical acceptance of the supposed necessity of killing their children.
"I thought it was offensive," said the Rev. James Lewis, a retired Episcopalian minister in Charleston, W.Va. "It represented an editorial position on their part."
You’d think "adoption" was a dirty word or hate speech. I guess it’s just not the politically correct choice.