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Google's Algorithm Displays Racist Results Because the Society Is Racist (fusion.net)
On June 6, Kabir Alli, an 18-year old in Virginia, posted a brief video of himself running a couple of quick Google image searches. First he searched for "three black teenagers" and was met with several rows of decontextualized mugshots. Then he searched for "three white teenagers" and was served up stock photos of relaxed teens hanging out in front of various plain white backgrounds. The tweet has stirred controversy, with many people accusing Google of being racist. But is that the case? Alli says that while it's Google's fault in some sense as they should have better control over the things people see, he also believes that at the end of the day, what Google shows us is a reflection of what people think. A Google spokesperson had similar things to say. Our image search results are a reflection of content from across the web, including the frequency with which types of images appear and the way they're described online. This means that sometimes unpleasant portrayals of sensitive subject matter online can affect what image search results appear for a given query. These results don't reflect Google's own opinions or beliefs -- as a company, we strongly value a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures.
a statistical fact that black males between ages of 14-17 are 10 times more likely to commit a homicide then Whites and Hispanic's Combines. Can deny the truth all you want but facts are facts.
Is it sterotypes and Lies or is it just straight on truth but everyone wants to cover it up? Take 1 guess what group commits 52.5% of the homicides on avg year after year?
In a sense you're seeing the beginnings of this with Trump. Really I think much of the drama is the 1% trying desperately to keep everyone from noticing that the middle class is disappearing faster than glaciers. Keep everyone riled up over non-issues (bathrooms anyone?) while inequality grows by leaps and bounds.
First do the search WITHOUT the word 'three'. Suddenly you get no mugshots.
It's the word three that's a problem. Nobody labels normal photos with the word 'three' in it. Instead, generally NEWS PHOTOS get that distinction. All the image searches you get when you do a 'three' search come from the news.
Try searching for:
three teenagers
three Jewish teenagers
three Christian teenagers
three Indian teenagers
When you ask for teenagers, you get a lot of black, Hispanic, and white teenagers, all mixed up.
When you specify that you only want three black teenagers or only three white teenagers - YOU are doing a search that embodies the racism. What's wrong with the Chinese teenagers? etc. etc.
But when racists go looking for three white teenagers, they want clean cut photos, so that's what Google gives them. When a racist goes looking for three black teenagers, they want thugs, so that is what Google gives them. When you want three Indian teenagers, you get poor people. Etc. etc. etc.
It's all from the racism inherent in the people asking those kinds of questions, not the search itself.
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