Banned Bounty
Labeled “Research” Chemicals, Doping Drugs Sold Openly on Amazon.com
Amazon bans injectable drugs, but enforcement failures have led to a swell of listings for unproven performance enhancing peptides
Jon Keegan
Investigative Data Journalist
Jon Keegan is passionate about revealing the hidden patterns created by our interactions with the big platforms. He is happiest when his computer’s fan is running full-tilt while collecting millions of rows of data.
Before The Markup, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, researching signals of trust in online news and studying the role of AI in journalism. He also worked at The Wall Street Journal for 18 years, where he ran the interactive graphics team.
Jon’s work has won several journalism awards, including the Loeb Award, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Excellence in Journalism Award and the Society of News Design’’s Best of Digital Gold Award.
Ask The Markup
Is This Amazon ReviewBullshit?
Spotting the fakes isn’t always possible, but here are some tips
Banned Bounty
Quiz: Can You Spot the Banned Amazon Item?
Amazon content moderators have only a few minutes to decide if a product is on the list of nearly 2,000 banned items
Show Your WorkBanned Bounty
How We Investigated Banned Items on Amazon.com
It wasn’t that hard; Amazon’s own search and recommendation tools led the way
Banned Bounty
Amazon’s Enforcement Failures Leave Open a Back Door to Banned Goods—Some Sold and Shipped by Amazon Itself
The online giant bans products related to drugs, spying and weapons, but we found plenty for sale; one of the items bought on the site left a grim trail of overdoses
Ask The Markup
What Are My Photos Revealing About Me?
You may be accidentally sharing personal information in your photos