Safiya Umoja Noble

Shayna Small

Algorithms of Oppression

A revealing look at how negative biases against women of color are embedded in search engine results and algorithms Run a Google search for “black girls”—what will you find? “Big Booty” and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in “white girls,” the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about “why black women are so sassy” or “why black women are so angry” presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society. In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color. Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance—operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond—understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance. An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century.

How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

Lindy

This is, unfortunately, a poorly written book on an important and often misunderstood topic. It's the latest in the string of books I've recently read from academic presses where I'm left wondering if anyone other than the author read it prior to publication. Certain points are repeated ad nauseum (and this book is only 186 pages, excluding endnotes but including many pages of figures) and there's some issues with internal consistency of viewpoint. For example, in discussing the racist radicalization of white men, Noble points out that white supremacy websites are returned by Google searches for "black on white crime" instead of FBI crime statistics etc. showing/describing how "black on white crime" is a racist myth, but in the next chapter she criticizes Artstor for returning a painting by a black woman commenting on racism as a phenomenon as opposed to actual racist images when someone searches by the subject heading "racism." The latter seems equitable to the desired outcome of the former, so I'm not sure where that leaves us.

"Algorithms of Oppression" is one of those works that succinctly summarise and provide factual, academic evidence to matters that many are aware of. Such works help emphasise and impress upon the reader the importance and the scale of the issue discussed.

The book was scarily accurate in predicting the 5 years since its publication in term of social and technological developments and their moral and ethical implications and it is disheartening to see how little heed most of society (that is to say the people directing those changes and the groups least directly affected by the subject matter of Safiya Umoja Noble's work, the intersection of which is - unfortunately - greatly significant) has taken. Perhaps we need to be reading books like "Algorithms of Oppression" more urgently and more widely. 

"Algorithms of Oppression" is one of those works that succinctly summarise and provide factual, academic evidence to matters that many are aware of. Such works help emphasise and impress upon the reader the importance and the scale of the issue discussed.

The book was scarily accurate in predicting the 5 years since its publication in term of social and technological developments and their moral and ethical implications and it is disheartening to see how little heed most of society (that is to say the people directing those changes and the groups least directly affected by the subject matter of Safiya Umoja Noble's work, the intersection of which is - unfortunately - greatly significant) has taken. Perhaps we need to be reading books like "Algorithms of Oppression" more urgently and more widely. 

ben wolfson

Essential for understanding today’s internet

Safiya 

Maybe a 2.5..
Exhaustive listing of online sexist oppression and harassment through some racist propos. I guess that this one falls closer to social sciences, in a sense that it could maybe raise a question of digital racial segregation , maybe that after all there's not much hate, just little preferences leading to a segregation pattern...(Shout out to Schelling Segregation Model). Anyhow...
I think that this book points ou the (not new) urgent need of more collaboration between social sciences and AI scientist, since there's clearly a missing ethical framework that is being replaced by a tour de force between big corporations and/or influential personas and figures.
I concluded that there are two solutions to the current crises (eventually things are way complex than this), and that is to either develop an adequate set of ethical norms or empower civil and political rights organisations and NGOs to become guardian angels for victims, and that would contribute to solution n°1, but is clearly painful...
There was particularly a point that I cherished and that was about "the right to being forgotten"... e.g: Google for instance saves all your data threefold, and when you delete your account, you still have your data on at least one server ...
More than cyber security, we clearly are in need of cyber & online safety...

Algorithms of Oppression

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