Google turned me into a serial killer

I recently encountered the same underlying problem with Google's knowledge graph.

I do a lot of scientific image analysis using an ancient (but reliable!) piece of software called ImageJ [0]. There's a more recent distro of the same called FIJI [1]. So when I tried looking for how to extract EXIF data for GPS coordinates using ImageJ (not even mentioning FIJI), Google returned an info box about the Fiji-the-nation and provided the coordinates of said nation:

https://i.imgur.com/HxSh8Zv.png

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5554542/

[1]: https://imagej.net/software/fiji/

I started my carreer with no debt for education. My family isn't rich but they aren't poor - just somewhere in the middle - above median income but not in the top tax bracket. They were able to provide help and I worked a bit to make up the difference. It's a pretty good leg-up for me, and I'm glad for it - it has made my adulthood much better than if I had to pay for loans and such.

This can directly be traced to the fact that my under-qualified father had a good job and worked hard. How did he have a good job if he was under-qualified? Well the labor pool was artificially kept small by disallowing women and people of color, and he went to college without debt. Why did he get to go to college without debt? Well his dad was able to own properties in neighborhoods where he could charge good rent, and he kept those properties nice. He was allowed to do this because he wasn't black and thus could legally own those properties, again artificially reducing his competition. He worked hard at keeping those properties nice, but he also hired a lot of people of color for low wages - they also worked hard.

So did my position happen in life because of economic privilege that my family built? Did my position in life happen because I'm white? The answer to both is the same: In part.

They worked hard. They spent wisely. They also didn't have to worry about a lot of potential competition because they weren't limited by racist rules and laws. Would they have done as well if they didn't get those protections? I doubt it though - they are good people but not top tier at thier chosen professions.

My point is, these things are really mixed together - my story here is pretty common - there's no denying that economic privilege I've enjoyed is in part because I come from a family with a bit of economic privilege - privilege gained in part due to their race.

It's better today, but it's not "fixed" by any stretch. There are still realtors that get in trouble for redlining or rejecting rental applicants for their race. There's plenty of examples, from this year even, of the same home being appraised at different values depending on if the photos around the house were of black or white families.

When something as fundamental to economic privilege as "ability to purchase things I can afford" and "ability to sell at market rates" are affected by race like that, is it really possible to say race isn't relevant to economic privilege?

Greg Egan (the geometer and sci-fi writer) had a similar (if much less harmful) issue for years, which he blogged about at https://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html .

"We made a profile of you, and if you think it's wrong, you'll have to register and share the right info with us" has been one of the safest giveaways of data hucksters. I used to think Google was the one exception, but by now I believe I should have trusted the rule.

At least someone is having fun with it: https://www.forgednfast.com/why-was-google-search-telling-pe....

If this were the case then one would expect Google to be paying businesses for up-to-date information with a contractual SLA.

How do you even contact Google about an issue like this in the first place? My only communication with Google in the capacity of a user has been automated messages.