#we are data

[musictapestry]

[rhmsdm-blog]

A visual example of what Noble refers to when she says the content of internet searches is intended for the male gaze.

“Women are depicted in a quite different way from men— not because the feminine is different from the masculine— but because the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him. The previous articulations of the male gaze continue to apply to other forms of advertising and media— particularly on the Internet— and the pornification of women on the web is an expression of racist and sexist hierarchies”- Noble, Safiya Umoja in Algorithms of Oppression : How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

[rhmsdm-blog]

Personalization is, to some degree, giving people the results they want on the basis of what Google knows about its users, but it is also generating results for viewers to see what Google Search thinks might be good for advertisers by means of compromises to the basic algorithm. This new wave of interactivity, without a doubt, is on the minds of both users and search engine optimizing companies and agencies. Google applications such as Gmail or Google Docs and social media sites such as Facebook track identity and previous searches in order to surface targeted ads for users by analyzing users’ web traces.

Noble, Safiya Umoja in Algorithms of Oppression : How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

[rhmsdm-blog]

This 2015 study by the Pew Research Center found that only “34% of respondents who were aware of the surveillance that happens automatically online through media platforms, such as search behavior, email use, and social media, reported that they were shifting their online behavior because of concerns of government surveillance and the potential implications or harm that could come to them” - Noble, Safiya Umoja in Algorithms of Oppression : How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

[rhmsdm-blog]

The privatization and commercial nature of information has become so normalized that it not only becomes obscured from view, but, as a result, is increasingly difficult to critique within the public domain. The Pew Internet and American Life Project corroborates that the public trusts multinational corporations that provide information over the Internet and that there is a low degree of distrust of the privatization of information.

Noble, Safiya Umoja in Algorithms of Oppression : How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

[rhmsdm-blog]

Themis is a software fairness tester.

Themis is a testing based approach that measures discrimination of software based on two kinds of discrimination: group discrimination and causal discrimination. Themis “generates efficient test suites to measure discrimination. Given a schema describing valid system inputs, Themis generates discrimination tests automatically” but does require some knowledge of coding. I recommend anyone familiar with coding to try this out!

[rhmsdm-blog]

In reality, information monopolies such as Google have the ability to prioritize web search results on the basis of a variety of topics, such as promoting their own business interests over those of competitors of smaller companies that are less profitable advertising clients than larger multinational corporations are.

Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, Safiya Noble