R01306920 - 30 min Essays - Alphabet Inc., World Wide Web, Computing

R01306920 - 30 min Robert Phelan Orientation Group 4 6/30/2017 11:30 am In today's rapid fast world of information and sharing, it can be hard to determine what is correct, what is wrong, what is biased, and what is not. And to solve this vexing problem, search engines such as Google came into existence to help ease and categorize the vast wealth of knowledge on the internet and make it more readily available to others. On paper this idea sounds great, but when put into action, problems can arise involving biases and discrimination. This is what Carole Cadwalladr set out to expose, and to call on a change with our search engines and their algorithmic biases. As she states in her article, and which can even be done by going on the phone in your pocket, Google search has been tainted with all kinds of slanderous and offensive websites making such statements as "Hitler was a good guy" and "women are evil". And as Cadwalladr points out as well, these websites being so open on search engine sites is just allowing the spread of such heinous ideologies and havi ng an impact on such worldly events as the Brexit Vote and Trump being elected. But how true is this statement? Not very. Cadwalladr brings up some very valid points in which she calls on Google to rectify their maligned search results and wishes they could provide sources on education rather than hatred to the masses of people that use their website every day. And while this is certainly a goal we should all strive for with our international online community, it can only be attained by the people who use the internet. Cadwalladr repeatedly blames Google for all of these hateful search results and tries to tie in other political factors such as Trump and "Right Wing Ideology", when in reality the people who control what Google displays online or in their search bar is simply: People. Google uses all their search data and bases what you and others might search based off of the people looking things up in the geographical range around you. So when Cadwalladr tries to fabricate that there is some kind of ensuing "information War" between the bad right and the good left, there really is not much consistency there. Even in page 5 of the Article she clearly states: "Did such micro-targeted propaganda - currently legal - swing the Brexit vote? We have no way of knowing." And goes on to even say: "Did the same methods used by Cabridge Analytica help Trump to victory? Again, we have no way of knowing." After reading this, it was quite apparent that while Carole Cadwalladr meant for a positive change and spreading awareness of internet biases, she was really trying to undermine conflicting political interests with her own. Rather than trying to create a firm academic paper based around the dangers that this careless searching could provide, Cadwalladr simply tried to throw her own political beliefs and fears to her audience of readers.