Throughout the years, I have become interested in a variety of different topics. And whenever these interests compels me to begin some form of research, whether it be for a blog or for my own writings, my first step is always to create a new Google Account. Although I recognize that this may be perceived by some as a strange practice, I find that having these separate accounts allows for the information pertaining to my subject of interest to be neatly categorized and to not be lost in the seemingly endless sea of content that I browse through daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of you may be asking yourselves, “why would one bring up his or her numerous Google Accounts in blog post about Algorithms?” The answer is simple. Because I am constantly creating new Google Accounts pertaining to a single topic, these new accounts are not influenced by previous searches made on the same account. What this means is that I Interact with Google’s search algorithm – tailored to new users – on the daily. Therefore, I can make the safe assumption that the results I receive on these accounts are influenced solely by Google’s search algorithm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When beginning my research on motorcycle racing for my blog dedicated to the subject, I began by searching the phrase, ‘motorcycle racing’ using Google’s search algorithm. My results did not yield information on individual racers or the most recent racing events but the Cycle World news page. While this website contained brief snippets of information pertaining to cyclists and racing events, its focus was fixed ont he motorcycles being produced by companies such as Kawasaki and Honda. Where were the links to Instagram accounts of cyclists? Where were the photographs of these cyclists on the circuit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her essay, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism<\/em>, Safiya Noble states that Google’s search algorithm yields results that favor particular organizations based on their monetary influence. Although I cannot state with impunity that Cycle World has given exorbitant amounts of funds to Google for their place on the top of my search results, their connections with different motorcycle production companies and racing events – both high grossing industries – leads me to believe that they are in the position to reinforce their standing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, this problem seems not only to affect racing fans but historians and students as well. When the phrase, ‘Civil Rights Movement’ is searched using Google’s search algorithm, only a text box containing general historical information on the subject appears. To make matters worse, the information provided states that the Civil Rights Movement took place starting in the 1950s and ended in the 1960s. However, this movement began as early as the 1930s during FDR’s New Deal Administration and has continued even to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These examples should remind us that the results we receive using Google’s search algorithm are not always the most reliable – they are not even unbiased. We must rely on ourselves, the users, to find credible, relevant information on our subjects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Throughout the years, I have become interested in a variety of different topics. And whenever these interests compels me to begin some form of research, whether it be for a blog or for my own writings, my first step is always to create a new Google Account. Although I recognize that this may be perceived … Continue reading “Biased Algorithms”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}