The Man Amazon Erased – Tablet Magazine
On Thursday, May 25, Brandon Jackson, a software engineer in Baltimore County, Maryland, discovered that he was locked out of his Amazon account. Jackson couldn t get packages delivered to his home by the retail giant. He couldn t access any files and data he had stored with Amazon Web Services, the company s powerful cloud computing wing. It also meant that Jackson, a self-described home automation enthusiast, could no longer use Alexa for his smart home devices. He could turn on his lights manually, but only in the knowledge that Amazon could still operate them remotely.
Jackson soon discovered that Amazon suspended his account because a Black delivery driver who d come to his house the previous day had reported hearing racist remarks from his video doorbell. In a brief email sent to Jackson at 3 a.m., the company explained how it unilaterally placed all of his linked devices and services on hold as it commenced an internal investigation.
The accusations baffled Jackson. He and his family are Black. When he reviewed the doorbell s footage, he saw that nobody was home at the time of the delivery. At a loss for what could have prompted the accusation of racism, he suspected the driver had misinterpreted the doorbell s automated response: Excuse me, can I help you?
Submitting the surveillance video appeared to have little impact on [Amazon s] decision to disable my account, Jackson explained on his blog on June 4. In the end, my account was unlocked on Wednesday [May 31, six days later], with no follow-up to inform me of the resolution. By now, many months later, Amazon s investigation into the matter appears to have concluded though the issue remains far from resolved. Contacted for a response, the company wrote: In this case, we learned through our investigation that the customer did not act inappropriately, and we re working directly with the customer to resolve their concerns while also looking at ways to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
It was only Jackson s technical skills and particular automated home setup that saved him from what could have been a larger lockout. My home was fine as I just used Siri or [a] locally hosted dashboard if I wanted to change a light s color or something of that nature, he explained. His week of digital exile amounted to a frustrating inconvenience only because, as a tech-savvy user and professional software engineer, he had the ability to set up his own locally hosted network that acted as a failsafe. But Jackson s experience is a warning to the vast majority of Alexa users and smart home dwellers who, lacking his particular skills and foresight, are increasingly at the mercy of the tech they have embedded into their lives and bedrooms.
Good reason to keep your house stupid. We use Alexa and it does seem especially clueless lately, as well as pushy on books I don’t want and other useless notifications. I told Alexa I didn’t want any more book recommendations, but that didn’t work.