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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.
If you google "5 black women" you get photos of groups of black women, however if you google "5 white women" you get pictures of shoes.
Clearly this is some sort of intentional misogy-racist commentary on the relative shoe purchasing power of ethno-genderic foot fetishists. Or something like that at least, can I have my social studies diploma now?
And black males are disproportionately represented in gangs and other criminal statistics. Notice how most of those mugshots are of black men, and pictures of women are for the most part not mugshots.
This just in: Search engine displays realities of life, not sugar-coated version of what we want. See other news and weather at 11.
If it's reflective of the content being indexed, the only way to "correct this bias" is to add bias.
You can't keep arguing for equality while at the same time highlighting differences.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
"it's Google's fault in some sense as they should have better control over the things people see"
No. Now fuck off. Oh shit, I guess that makes me a racist I suppose.
Alli says that while it's Google's fault in some sense as they should have better control over the things people see...
In so far as Google controlling how information is displayed, I agree. Google, however, should not control which information is displayed. There is little difference between hiding mugshot photos and hiding photos of tanks in Tienanmen Square; both represent significant social issued we should not hide from view lest they be allowed to continue behind the shadows.
That is to say, it is Google's job to display exactly the information they are displaying: the potentially offensive images and their sources. It, then, becomes our job as a moral society to take those sources to task if they are in the wrong. Google hiding this information would, in reality, protect the people actually perpetrating the offenses.
Sure, you might not have to see it anymore, but that doesn't mean it's gone away. Making it go away is our job; showing it to us so we know we haven't met with success yet is Google's.
The question, then, becomes whether or not what Google depicts is an accurate representation of reality; we already know it's an accurate representation of the sources. If it is an accurate representation of reality, it is on us to change that reality; if it is not, it is on us to convince the sources to change to match reality.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
It is all Google's fault that most black teenagers have criminal records, while most white teenagers spend their time hanging out around white backdrops. Lets not even think about putting the blame on those poor black children. They not only face the problem of poverty, but also the problem of childhood obesity caused by all that food stamp money. I blame Google. They should be returning search results based on how we would like the world to be, not how it is.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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.
Some groups will do anything to avoid accurate self analysis
So you think that instead of reporting on the world as it is Google should, in their infinite wisdom, decide what the world should look like and then return search results with that in mind?
Moreover, how do you envision Google actually implementing your regime of censorship? Currently the lifetime risk of going to prison for a black US male is about 30%. By age 18, 30% of black men have been arrested. The typical white and black teenager do not have the same life experiences. So how are Google's algorithms supposed to decide when displaying the inequalities of our society is the right thing to do, and when doing so would be too upsetting to the user?
+1
I was reading through before posting and FINALLY someone said the correct answer.
Google's systems are just returning matches from their index. Google isn't creating the content they are indexing. They are not making decisions about society, what you might want to see, or whatever value people want to try and slap on it. CHANGING that behavior is what would introduce bias.
And like it or not, there appears to be far more content on the web to index that has "black teenager" equated with mugshots than "white teenager". And that shouldn't be surprising ot anyone because facts show that to be true in reality, too... not just some bias of the web. We can try to argue WHY this is so, but that doesn't change that it is fact and Google is doing nothing wrong.
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
a statistical fact that black males ages 14-17 are more than 10 times more likely to end up in prison for the same drug "crimes" than white teens committing the same offense. This is due to the *fact* that the color of their skin makes them more likely to get pulled over, then searched, then indicted, and then convicted.
Read this: https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim...