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Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

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Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point: there is no reason why an innocent query such as 'black girls' should bring up a bunch of porn. And Google seems to agree with this because they have since tweaked things so that that no longer happens.

No, the point is that the author selectively presents information that bolsters the point she wants to make. I'm pretty certain that if she searched for " girls" -- white girls, asian girls, etc. -- with safe search turned off, a good number of the results would be NSFW, because the internet is 75% porn (and 25% cat videos).

See the paragraphs titled 'beyond black girls' in TFA.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#152
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think thats basically what Facebook is at the moment, a filter/curation bubble - only jacked up to 1000. What would be IMO useful and more powerful is being able to switch bubbles. Google at the moment has a "no personalization", which is better than only being allowed to access your perspective bubble, but you probably only click on your bubble. The point should be to slowly break down the bubbles, make them less…

It'd be great if I could turn on someone else's bubble for a day or so, and "walk a mile in their shoes".

You actually can with Facebook and Twitter. As a moderate, I like seeing many different views on a subject. My approach to get the pulse of social media on political issues is to have a lot of really different kinds of people on my friends list. I also gave likes to and commented on any interesting things they said in case Facebook algorithms prioritize them away.

If this post got widely shared, Id see responses in Facebook from people including several types of feminists, business woman arguing cold numbers/profit, males/females arguing black angles or activism (had one just like researcher in OP), male/female opponents of both (white and non-white), activists citing whoever gets ignored most (eg nativelivesmatter to BLM activists), at least one reactionary racist whose dismissals will be common, and thoughtful oddballs who I cant easily predict. Each will have reflexive comments or even articles with evidence for their view or against others.

It can be overwhelming to look at it all but I do on critical issues to ensure Im basing my views or actions on big picture rather than a filter bubble. If not a big issue, Ill just lazily click on my feed which is definitely a bubble of folks with similar interests, the most discussions/tags/messages, or most likes. I noticed Facebook ruined my scheme more over time where I have to actually click on specific names to see those kind of view points. Ive also been told Twitter would be ideal for this and know folks that do it there but still havent got on it myself for common anti-Twitter reasons. ;)

So, you can currently do that with both platforms. If you pick representative people (gotta do that right), you will see about everything they believe as a group about what's trending in their groups or nationally. You will have more good info and see more info as bad since tunnel vision the alternative approach creates is part of why bad info spreads. Lastly, it's just really interesting if you're a people watcher like me to see all the different ideas, jokes, trends, lifestyles, etc people share. I didnt originally add these people to study politics of rough topics: each was interesting and/or helpful in discussions, often face-to-face, before I added them. So, it's fun, enlightening, and sometimes challenging to have truly, diverse friends around you.

Note: Might be worthwhile to try to design some kind of meta-search engine designed to mimick what I just described. My quick guesses at how to build it suggest it would be really tricky to deal with human factors. Ill just leave it at saying the concept would be useful.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#153
post #59

This is a much harder problem that it looks to a casual observer. Just imagine what kind of people would type "black girls" to Google search. Not "black girls outfit", not "black girls social bias", just "black girls". I'll bet at least 50% of the searchers are looking for porn. So even if Google had infinite resources, its choices are: (1) act as a moral authority and deny pornographic contents to those who are look…

It seems a given that any search that does not include explicit "pornographic terms" should never return pornographic results.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#154

Do we know if Google or tech in general hires black women less than proportional to the US population?

The real question is whether or not they hire proportional to the number of black women that are looking for work in a specific role.

Ah that may be the case, yes.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#155
post #148
post #59

This is a much harder problem that it looks to a casual observer. Just imagine what kind of people would type "black girls" to Google search. Not "black girls outfit", not "black girls social bias", just "black girls". I'll bet at least 50% of the searchers are looking for porn. So even if Google had infinite resources, its choices are: (1) act as a moral authority and deny pornographic contents to those who are look…

I wish the article had included screen shots of search results for "white girls" and "Asian girls". Would there be any less porn? I strongly doubt it.

"Asian girls", maybe. But "white girls" definitely would not have returned porn.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#156

I do not think the word "racism" is a good fit for this. There is no prejudice, or a belief that another race is superior. This is not singling out black women. Any search for "blonde teens" during that time would yield porn-related results too. A search engine just tries to give the most relevant search. Likely, a large part of the population was in search of sex when searching for these type of queries. The "bias"…

I think it is only apt and deserving that this post got flagged (despite having a positive amount of upvotes).

Perhaps I should write an article to demand that Hackernews changes its biased scoring system, so that underrepresented and repressed views like mine can also get the exposure they so much need.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think Google is responsible in 2018, now that they offer extremely tailored results. Duckduckgo, maybe not. But if Google is going to say "we're going to show you listings for restaurants in SF in your simple 'restaurants' search because we know you live in SF," I think they should also say "we're going to show you results for LGBT resources when you search for 'gay men' because nothing about your query indicates…

Political correctness and affirmative action are based on the idea that pretending the world is an ideal version of itself will eventually make it that way. In reality though, the world is a complex place and the ideal pretend version can only be implemented in a carefully controlled environment such as a movie, a theatrical presentation, a video game or a situation where all participants agree to or are pressured in…

I try not to get involved in these kinds of dangerous discussions but i just wanted to highlight your comparison to SafeSearch. Political correctness really does feel like having to walk around with SafeSearch on all my inputs and outputs, programmed to filter out an ever-changing and inscrutable list of wrongthink and wrongspeak from the real world. It’s so true—great comment.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the point is that the author selectively presents information that bolsters the point she wants to make. I'm pretty certain that if she searched for " girls" -- white girls, asian girls, etc. -- with safe search turned off, a good number of the results would be NSFW, because the internet is 75% porn (and 25% cat videos).

See the paragraphs titled 'beyond black girls' in TFA.

Yes, I read the article. If anything, those paragraphs support what I just wrote.

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#159
post #115
post #32

I’m always amazed how often the “surprise” that digital technology is in fact not unbiased and robotic in nature keeps getting written about. Algorithms that optimize for click through rate for ads and search relevancy will inevitably be a reflection of ourselves and all of the shitty things various people believe. >> What we know about Google’s responses to racial stereotyping in its products is that it typically de…

> I’m always amazed how often the “surprise” that digital technology is in fact not unbiased and robotic in nature keeps getting written about. Algorithms that optimize for click through rate for ads and search relevancy will inevitably be a reflection of ourselves and all of the shitty things various people believe. What you just observed and described is that technology _is_ unbiased and robotic. The bias is in the…

> What you just observed and described is that technology _is_ unbiased and robotic.

Just to get calibrated: what is an example-- real or imagined-- of technology that is biased?

Re: Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do, yes. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/30/google-d... > Women made up 31% of Google employees in 2015, up one percentage point since 2014, according to statistics released by the Internet giant on Thursday. One in five technical hires were women in 2015, raising the number of women in technical roles to 19% from 18% in 2014 and 17% in 2013. In 2015, women held nearly a quarter of leadership post…

> Given that women are half the population, and African Americans and Hispanics each make up about 12%, we can state categorically that Google's hiring doesn't match the general US population. But if you account for demographics within the industry do the numbers remain biased? For example: men account for less than 10% of nurses so if you were to go to a hospital with 50% male nurses they would be way overrepresente…

From what I know there is push for more male nurses and some issues with doscriminatory attitudes towards male nurses.
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