Search Engine Biased

Group Project title: The Trend of Social Media in 21 century

Individual Topic:  Search Engine Biased

Internet search engine takes a very important role in our lives nowadays. Internet users do research by search engine when they want to know something. Internet users believe the result that showed on search engine. It is basically because people think Internet is a representation of human value. However, according to critics, the result of research engine is not as neutral as you think.

According to Herman Tavani in his book “Search Engines and Ethics”, “While some users may assume that search engines are “neutral” or value-free, critics argue that search engine technology, as well as computer technology in general, is value-laden and thus biased because of the kinds of features typically included in their design” (Tavani 3). Because of the design of the search search engine technology, the result of the search engine is biased. For example, Pariser said that the result suggested by Google is “personalized”.

It is very possible that all internet user including young and old would believe what they found on the Internet. In the new generation, therefore, search engine biased might be a very serious problem in new generation. Internet users might not be able to identify whether the information they search are neutral or biased. Their searching result might misleading them to change their value on something and narrow the horizon of users because what shows in their website is actually what they wanted to see or watch.

Pariser said, we are “more enclosed in our own bubbles.” A filter bubble is the restriction of a user’s perspective that can be created by personalized search technologies. Filter bubble exists because search engine make the search result based on the behavior, browsing history, location, search history of the users. It means that two people search the same thing in the same search engine might have different search result. For example, in a Ted talk, Pariser gave an example of “filter bubble”. He asked two of his friends to search “Egypt” on Google and sent him the search results. The results were obviously different that one of them was focusing on political and the other was focusing on vacation advertisement. Even though it is an example of search engine biased, it is not a misrepresentation of “Egypt”. It is the results represent “Egypt” while “Egypt” is a big subject and the result are related to “Egypt”.

In fact, there are many misrepresentation in other search such as “Black women”. According to “Google Search: Hyper-visibility as a Means of Rendering Black Women and Girls Invisible”, “Google Search results on the words “Black girls” reflect hegemonic social power and racist and sexist bias” (Noble 2). It is a misrepresentation of identity in Google Search engine of “Black girls”.

Search Engine biased can cause very serious problems due to the power and impact of Internet. We have to treat this problem carefully and seriously in order to create fair representation online.

Work Cited

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles” | TED Talk. N.p., Mar. 2011. Web. 08 Aug. 2017.

Noble, S. U. “Google search: Hyper-visibility as a means of rendering black women and girls invisible.” InVisible Culture 19 (2013): n. pag. Web. 10 Aug. 2017.

Tavani, Herman, “Search Engines and Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)