Algorithms Of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

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Essay – How search engines are making us more racist Search engines like Google or similar are something we use virtually every day, in fact, we search Google 3.5 billion times every day. The world we live in, we receive more information from search engines online than from teachers or books. Search engines find the best answers for your search by using algorithms that decide what information is being brought to you. The platform is made by a small group of people — that have limited knowledge about the society — for the majority in the society, but, is the platform we get the information delivered on neutral and unbiased or does the developer bias reflect on the search result? In the society we live in, search engines are becoming a bigger …show more content…

Google’s search algorithms have for numerous years been accused of being slightly racist, in the way the information is delivered to the user and what information that is delivered. The algorithms are developed by people and every person has an opinion on something and that may reflect on the results we get from searching the web. It’s also important to note that books are still very useful for gathering information and since the new generation is used to use Google for seeking knowledge it will forget the even book …show more content…

“They’re designing technologies for society, and they know nothing about society.”. As Noble says they don’t know anything about the society, they can only generalize from the knowledge they know. Noble tested this, and one of the tests she searched the word ‘beautiful’ and images of white women in bikinis or lingerie were the images that dominated the search result. Looking at Google’s AdWords and how that affects the search is very interesting when searching for electronic products, it shows up as you would expect; in a column alongside or on top of the search and it says ‘sponsored’ above it. The highest bidder on the keyword shows up. But when searching on “Asian girls” there is two advertisements showing up and it says with small insufficient symbol before the link saying “Ad”, both of those sites were dating sites, and the rest of the search that is supposed to be neutral and unbiased shows otherwise; majority of the sites has something related to dating, referring to Asians girls as objects and the sites or forums seemed stereotypical. An example of Google’s algorithms misleading

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