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Lawmakers Press Amazon on Sales of Chemical Used in Suicides

Even as grieving families tried to warn Amazon and other e-commerce sites of the danger, there were more purchases and more deaths.

Click to view the original at nytimes.com

Hasnain says:

ML can cause harm if left unchecked, case study #1000. Though humans are culpable here too - especially for the tone deaf responses and removals of negative reviews pointing out the harm.

“Since then, suicides linked to sales of the preservative through Amazon have continued. The New York Times identified 10 people who had killed themselves using the chemical compound after buying it through the site in the past two years, including a 16-year-old girl in Ohio, a pair of college freshmen in Pennsylvania and Missouri, and a 27-year-old in Texas whose mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against Amazon. Enough people purchased the preservative to attempt suicide that the company’s algorithm began suggesting other products that customers frequently bought along with it to aid in such efforts.”

Posted on 2022-02-05T00:31:41+0000