Racism In Online Ad Targeting

An anonymous reader writes "Most of us are familiar with advertisements in online web searching, and by now we've grown accustomed to scrolling past the 'sponsored' results to get to the real responses to our query. And we know the ads are context-sensitive; for example, searching for our favorite Federation Starship will bring up ads for a similarly-named car-rental agency. But now a Harvard University professor has found a more disturbing trend in those contextual ads: racism. 'Sweeney says she has evidence that black identifying names are up to 25 per cent more likely to be served with an arrest-related ad. "There is discrimination in delivery of these ads," she concludes. Sweeney gathered this evidence by collecting over 2000 names that were suggestive of race. For example, first names such as Trevon, Lakisha and Darnell suggest the owner is black while names like Laurie, Brendan and Katie suggest the owner is white. She then entered these plus surnames into Google.com and Reuters.com and examined the ads they returned. Most names generated ads for public records. However, black-identifying names turned out to be much more likely than white-identifying names to generate ads that including the word "arrest" (60 per cent versus 48 per cent).'"

Comments

Racism is a cause,

[YodasEvilTwin]

not an effect. Making use of stats is not racism. Racism is denying the fact that many blacks in the US have been disadvantaged and largely as a result are more likely to commit crimes and get arrested. Pretending the numbers don't exist is horrible.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[dehole]

One cannot escape that in the US, there are more black inmates than white or hispanic. The reason for their incarceration may be race related (eg the popular DWB: driving while black, crime that many innocent people are charged with), but the fact remains that yes, a higher percentage of black people in the US are in US jails with respect to white people.

Maybe we can take the time to find out why this is the case, and correct it, rather than pretend that using official stats is racist.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that it re-enforces the stereotype and actually does cause certain behaviour. If you constantly tell one group they are a bunch of criminals and just assume they are probably up to no good then you shouldn't be surprised when it turns out they are.

The point of treating everyone equally is to make it clear that regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation or whatever you have the same chance, the same opportunity to make something of yourself. Of course in reality not everyone has access to good schools or good jobs, but if you keep re-enforcing that imagine it strengthens it. We still need to push to level the playing field, despite all the progress that has been made.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[Daetrin]

"Racism is denying the fact that many blacks in the US have been disadvantaged and largely as a result are more likely to get arrested."

Fixed that for you. Even when they haven't committed any crime non-white people in general and black people in particular are more likely to get harassed by cops. They're also more likely to be arrested if they have committed a crime and once arrested more likely to go to jail. That is especially the case if the crime is something relatively minor, say getting caught with pot. If you're white and well off that would probably be a wrist slap at worst. If you're black and poor however...

Re:Racism is a cause,

[Lord Apathy]

What I always find amazing is we like to point fingers at results and scream racism. How about we look at what caused the statiscs to be that way in the first place?

How about this for some hard core news? Black males between the ages of 13 and 30 commit more crimes per race than any other race. 1/3 of black males in that age group are ether, in prison, on parol, or waiting to be tried for something.

How about we stop bitch'n about the satistics and screaming racism about every little thing? Why don't we take our heads out of the sand and start looking at the real god damn problem and trying to fix it? No, its far easier to scream racism than to fix the god damn problem.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[Beardo the Bearded]

Google adsense thinks I'm gay.

Apparently if you have an interest in weapons (I'm a military contractor) and yoga (and fitness instructor), you're also interested in an all-you-can-eat sausage buffet.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[Frojack123]

Or could it be that we already know what the cause is, but it is inconvenient to mention it?

Black cops arrest black perps at least at the same rate as white cops.
Black Judges sentence black criminals to terms that do not differ from those by White Judges.
Citation Here.

There is some evidence that Black Officers arrest blacks at a higher rate than white officers,
probably because they don't have to be worried about being charged with racism.

Findings suggest that officer race has direct influence on arrest outcomes and there are substantive differences between White and Black officers in the decision to arrest. In general, White officers in our study were more likely to arrest suspects than Black officers, but Black suspects were more likely to be arrested when the decision maker was a Black officer.

Why is it racist to use black crime statistics, but not sexist to use male crime statistics?

Re:Racism is a cause,

[PRMan]

Not to mention that most people in prison don't have father figures in their lives, which means that marriage has a strong positive effect on society. But most people don't want to hear that morals were invented by people who wanted better societies and that's why they should be followed, they want to do their own thing and screw everyone else.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[cayenne8]

This is exactly what I've said over and over. Honestly, I believe we don't go looking for the problem because we are afraid of what we might find. Well high time we find out why the stats are coming out like this and find the real problem.

I don't suppose you would ever accept the answer being something along the lines of "because they are committing the majority of the crimes in the US"?

Nah..it couldn't possibly be that simple.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[phantomfive]

I am sympathetic to blacks who live in places with racist judges, however, it's important to remember that any attempt to equalize the incarceration rate is doomed to fail if it doesn't take into account that black people commit crime at a higher rate than white people. That's the unfortunate reality, and it's not racist unless you consider statistics to be racist.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[tbird81]

So how many people did they rape? You know, attack a woman, hold her down, beat the shit out of her, then forcefully have sex with her, kick her in the head and leave her for dead alone in an alleyway?

Why are you obsessed with the monetary amount of damage? It's just money. The biggest criminals and the people who destroy human life and dignity.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[Daetrin]

I'm not going to argue that it's impossible that black people actually commit more crimes than white people, but i'm curious what statistics you're citing and how that data was gathered.

Let's imagine some mythical town which is 50% white and 50% black and whose judicial system is entirely free from irrational racism. However they rationally note that last year statistics showed black people were more likely to commit crimes than white people. So the cops pull over more black people and send out more patrols to predominately black neighborhoods. That's the rational thing to do after all. And surprise surprise! More black people end up getting arrested. So the statistics next year show black people are more likely to commit crimes. However a closer look at the data shows that both blacks and whites were equally likely to end up getting arrested after getting pulled over, and patrols in white neighborhoods had the same average number of arrests as patrols in black neighborhoods. Without any intentional racism on anyone's part racism still exists in the system just because of people blindly following statistics.

I'm not saying we need to mandate equal incarceration rates. But everyone should be treated equally regardless of what statistics might say about the likelihood of "someone like them" having committed a crime. And if there is some statistical evidence that one group is committing more crime and/or ending up in jail more then we shouldn't be using that as a justification for treating the two groups differently, we should instead be taking a long hard and in-depth look at why the statistics are that way.

However we're still at the point where some groups are being punished disproportionately for the same crime on a nationwide basis.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[TsuruchiBrian]

Not to mention that most people in prison don't have father figures in their lives, which means that marriage has a strong positive effect on society.

Actually it doesn't mean that at all. It *could* be true. But it *could* just be a correlation. You have to do actual statistics to figure out if there is a causal relationship.

A shockingly high percentage of people going to the hospital die within days of their visit. Clearly hospitals are bad for your health.

It could simply be that some other factor is causing both the criminality and the lack of fathers. In which case, simply getting married, will not fix the problem of criminality. Just like how not going to the hospital will not keep you from dying.

Morality was not invented by people who wanted better societies. Morality is not invented by anyone. Morality in humans is the result of billions of years of evolution. We are a social species and a moral compass is advantageous to the survival of the species. It also exists in different forms in other social animals. And it existed in humans well before any of the great philosophers like Rawls or Kant. They simply added to our collective understanding of morality.

Some people conflate morality with some kind of "universal" Christian morality, but there is no objective set of moral axioms. It was moral for Inuits to kill their first baby if it was a girl. It was moral for Chistians and Muslims to have slaves. Morality evolves. There is no reason that marriage or fathers *should* have anything to do with morality.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[clarkkent09]

Blacks were poor in the 50s but had the same rate of incarceration as whites even though they faced much greater discrimination than today: http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/incarceration.jpg

The difference was that in the 50s the black family was as strong as white family (as measured by the number of children raised by single parents). Since the "sexual liberation" in the 60s the black family has basically disintegrated. The number of black kids raised by single matter went up from 20s% to >70%. White kids also started from around 20% but only went up to 35%. It corresponds very nicely with the difference in incarceration rates.

The different response to the breakup of traditional family values can be explained by the fact that white families had greater roots in those traditions that were harder to break. It is the poorest who are always most vulnerable to great social change.

Maybe centuries old traditions of religion and family life are not based on stupid superstitions as many people educated beyond the level of their intelligence seem to think these days, but on the experience of what works and what doesn't that evolved over many centuries?

Re:Racism is a cause,

[argStyopa]

Let's apply the "look at all the blacks in prison, it MUST be racism" logic another way:

What % of inmates are male? 90%? 95%?

CLEARLY, that's a result of sexism on the part of the arresting officers, judges, juries and the entire system are biased against men, because if they weren't, a majority of the prison population would be women, right?

Sounds stupid in that context doesn't it?

Ask yourself why.

Re:Racism is a cause,

[pod]

"What's racist is the "black identifying names" in TFA. Now that's racist. What? Because I'm a Caucasoid I can't be named a "black" name? Dark skinned folk can't be named "white" names? Fuck that."

Again, not racist, just numbers, statistics. A person named "Lakisha" is far far more likely to be black than white. Why are people getting angry at numbers? Is an expert or heuristic system "racist" when it determines this to be the case?

Not to sound insensitive

[Anonymous Coward]

But does anyone know what the most popular names associated with arrest rates happen to be? Maybe there's actual correlation there?
And I'm not saying that's correct either, since there is likely strong racial bias in many arrests made by officers themselves...

Re:Not to sound insensitive

[oic0]

Arrests are debatable like you said, police bias. Murder rates however are not. there is a corpse to show for it. The murder rate difference is MASSIVE, and I mean massive. Exponential. All the talk of gun violence in the US usually leaves out that fact when comparing us to other countries. For instance, our white murder rate is very close to that of most European countries with gun bans. One race is a bit of a ringer and throws our stats way off by being 13% of the population but accounting for over 50% of murder.

Not Racism

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not racism if the ads were being generated purely on statistical models. It may be a sad reflection of the state of African-Americans, but unless you can show how people have manipulated the process for some reason, it's merely statistics.

Targeted Ads

[Java Pimp]

Targeted ads are by definition discriminating.

Now if names can be racially identifying....

[bickerdyke]

isn't it racist to give them to your kids?

Sounds like Bowfinger

[Dave Emami]

Kit: The letter K appears in this script 1,456 times. That's perfectly divisible by 3.
Freddy: So what? So what you saying?
Kit: What am I saying? KKK appears in this script 486 times!

I am not a statistician...

[rmdingler]

However, I have a keen proficiency when it comes to grasping the obvious. Black people make better running backs than white people. Asian's named Nguyen are more likely than white's named Cletus to get academic scholarships. At a Bar, an Hispanic male in his 20's is a much better percentage bet for party favors than a 50-something white woman. Should I be offended that Google singles me out for testosterone supplements?

Re:Last name is black

[Stormwatch]

It's mustn't be easy being Green.

The NERVE!

[mythosaz]

What's next? Serving up maxi-pad ads to female names?

I'm calling my congressperson.

Re:Racism gotten to the point

[dbet]

Uh, no. Race exists in all species, it is a subdivision of that species, just like species is a subdivision of a genus. In dogs we call them breeds. Where the boundaries lie between races is somewhat arbitrary. Between these groups, physical and biological differences are the rule, not the exception. If it helps you to call them "ethnicities", go right ahead, because those differences are smaller but still exist.

This doesn't mean an individual is defined by his or her race, only that they tend toward different means than those of other races. Nor does it excuse discrimination under the law, or treating members of some races poorly simply because they're a member of that race.

This is scientific, biological reality. Even if all the races died except for one, in 50,000 years there would be multiple races again, provided different populations were allowed to separate entirely for a while.

Names of Those Arrested

[sycodon]

I don't supposed she checked out the names of all the folks arrested. She might find that there is evidence there that suggests Google is merely following the numbers.

Now, she could argue that law enforcement is discriminatory. But that would be even more support for Google's efforts being evidence based and not a result of bias. It doesn't matter if you were arrested because of what you did or because of your name or color. You still need to make bail and get a lawyer.

I know all kinds... all kinds....

[erroneus]

I know pathetically stupid, loser asian people. I know highly inteligent and educated black people. I know a lot of people who most definitely defy the stereotypes which we are all very aware of. But there was a time when I would have defended the practices being described. I will not defend them. It's rather disgusting if this is the truth.

But all that said, stereotypes exist because of an overwhelming preponderance of anecdotal evidence. And in the end, advertisers want to get their ads in front of the people who would be the most interested in seeing them, So in "bad neighborhoods" we see billboards for bondsmen and lawyers among other things. And I have even seen this online when I am in areas with wifi in bad neighborhoods. While disgusting, it would not be practiced if it weren't also effective. So we shouldn't be asking "why are advertisers responding to statistical evidence?" We should be asking how can we make positive changes that result in a change in statistics!

Because if we are seeing to have a practice which is largely based on statistical evidence, we are merely seeking to institutionalize denial of the truth. I'm just not inclined to deny a problem when solving it would seem more appropriate.

Dr. Latanya Sweeney?

[mopower70]

I can't imagine how anyone with a name like that would have a personal bias in interpreting these results. No sirree.