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WORK TITLE: Algorithms of Oppression
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://safiyaunoble.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
P: (310) 206-2467
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Children: one stepdaughter.
EDUCATION:California State University, Fresno, B.A.; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, M.S., Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author. University of California, Los Angeles, assistant professor; University of Southern California, professor; Information Ethics & Equity Institute, co-founder.
AWARDS:Early Career Award, University of California, Los Angeles; Hellman fellow.
WRITINGS
Coeditor of Emotions, Technology & Design, 2015, and The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Culture and Class Online, 2016. Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, associate editor.
SIDELIGHTS
Prior to starting her academic career, Safiya Umoja Noble attended California State University, Fresno and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she obtained her bachelor’s, then her master’s and doctoral degrees, respectively. She is currently aligned with the University of Southern California, where she serves as a professor. She has also published or assisted with the development of several pieces of writing. She was a part of the editing staff for Emotions, Technology & Design and The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Culture and Class Online, and also serves as an editor for one publication, Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies. Noble’s topics of research and expertise include sexuality, gender, race, online search tools, and how all four of these subjects intertwine. She has received both an Early Career Award and Hellman Fellowship for her work.
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism is Noble’s first full-fledged book. The subject of the book involves deep research on the relationship between race and search algorithms, and was influenced by an observation Noble found while conducting an Internet search. What started as a simple Google inquiry about black women rapidly turned into something more unsettling; typing that specific term into the engine led to a slew of devalued and risque images. When Noble conducted a similar search, this time for white women, she found the opposite. Her findings culminate into the book’s central thesis: the ways straight white men view the world deeply impacts the technology they create and use. Noble mentions and discusses several other findings regarding Google’s algorithms throughout the book, such as black women also turning up when she looked up the word “gorilla.” She also establishes that while search engines may seem harmless and completely objective, they are actually not. Furthermore, they have the potential to further shape how other people see the world, and even themselves. Noble further expounds upon this point by highlighting how Google’s staff has manipulated their algorithms for the sake of marketing, and that they can be swayed by those with enough money to place some results over others. Noble presents the viewpoint that this practice can lead to considerable harm.
Booklist contributor Lesley Williams remarked: “Noble’s study should prompt some soul-searching about our reliance on commercial search engines and about digital social equity.” On the New York Journal of Books website, Robert Fantina commented: “Algorithms of Oppression is a wakeup call to bring awareness to the biases of the internet, and should motivate all concerned people to ask why those biases exist, and who they benefit.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 1, 2018, Lesley Williams, review of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, p. 15.
Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2018, review of Algorithms of Oppression.
ONLINE
New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (May 14, 2018), Robert Fantina, review of Algorithms of Oppression.
Safiya Umoja Noble website, https://safiyaunoble.com (June 12, 2018), author profile.
In the Fall of 2017, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble joined the faculty of the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School of Communication. Previously, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Information Studies in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA where she held appointments in the Departments of African American Studies, Gender Studies, and Education. She is a partner in Stratelligence, a firm that specializes in research on information and data science challenges, and is a co-founder of the Information Ethics & Equity Institute, which provides training for organizations committed to transforming their information management practices toward more just, ethical, and equitable outcomes. She is the recipient of a Hellman Fellowship and the UCLA Early Career Award.
Noble’s academic research focuses on the design of digital media platforms on the internet and their impact on society. Her work is both sociological and interdisciplinary, marking the ways that digital media impacts and intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, and technology design. Her monograph on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines is entitled Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (forthcoming, NYU Press). She currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, and is the co-editor of two books: The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Culture and Class Online (Peter Lang, Digital Formations, 2016), and Emotions, Technology & Design (Elsevier, 2015). Safiya holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a B.A. in Sociology from California State University, Fresno with an emphasis on African American/Ethnic Studies.
Research & Scholarly Interests
Search engine ethics
Racial and gender bias in algorithms
Technological redlining
Socio-cultural, economic and ethical implications of information in society
Race, gender and sexuality in information communication technologies
Digital technology and Internet policy development
Privacy and surveillance
Information and/as control
Critical information studies
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Lesley Williams
Booklist. 114.11 (Feb. 1, 2018): p15.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. By Safiya Umoja Noble. 2017.256p. NYU, paper, $28 (9781479837243). 025.04252.
While searching the web with her stepdaughter, Noble, an academic specializing in information studies, was horrified to see that Google results for "black girls" were almost universally sexual and demeaning, whereas results for "white girls" were not. This experience led her to plumb the depths of online search algorithms and to write this account of her discovery that, rather than being neutral or objective, they, in fact, reflect the biases of their (mostly white and male) creators. Noble demolishes the popular assumption that Google is a values-free tool with no agenda, pointing out that advertising and political pressure have long influenced Google results. She astutely questions the wisdom of turning so much of our data and intellectual capital over to a corporate monopoly and laments the simultaneous neglect of public institutions such as schools and libraries (even while noting that library databases suffer from the same biases found in Google). Of particular note, especially for librarians, is her warning against the rush to digitization. Noble points out the privacy violation involved in posting archives about vulnerable groups online and argues for the "right to be forgotten," which disproportionately affects people of color and sexual minorities. Noble's study should prompt some soul-searching about our reliance on commercial search engines and about digital social equity.--Lesley Williams
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Williams, Lesley. "Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2018, p. 15. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527771760/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=58bcf83b. Accessed 14 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527771760
Noble, Safiya Umoja: ALGORITHMS OF OPPRESSION
Kirkus Reviews. (Jan. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Noble, Safiya Umoja ALGORITHMS OF OPPRESSION New York Univ. (Adult Nonfiction) $89.00 2, 20 ISBN: 978-1-4798-4994-9
How Google and other search engines represent marginalized people in "erroneous, stereotypical, or even pornographic ways."
Noble (Information Studies/UCLA; co-editor: Emotions, Technology, and Design, 2016, etc.) was drawn to her subject in 2011, when her Google search on the keywords "black girls" brought up a black pornography site as the first hit. Her subsequent research has led her to conclude that such web searches yielding racism and sexism as the first results reflect "a corporate logic of either willful neglect or a profit imperative that makes money from racism and sexism." Google has since changed its algorithm for the "black girls" search, but the author has identified and writes here about many other instances of search engine "recklessness and lack of regard" for women and people of color--e.g., a 2016 Google Images search for "gorillas" that produced photographs of black women. Arguing from a black feminist perspective, Noble says such search findings "increasingly lead to racial and gender profiling, misrepresentation, and even economic redlining." She notes that contrary to the popular belief that Google is a public resource, the search engine is a commercial enterprise--an advertising agency--that "biases search to its own economic interests." As a result, she writes, the company often prioritizes powerful or highly capitalized industries and interests. Also, due to the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley and the general lack of people with an understanding of racism and sexism, search engines fail to carefully analyze the potential impacts of their products. Whether by neglect or deliberation, girls' identities are often "commercialized, sexualized, or made curiosities." As Noble writes, "intention is not particularly important." Meanwhile, pornography and other businesses work to maximize their search results. Other topics covered include Google's monopoly on information and the need for regulation. Jargon limits the book's accessibility, and a chapter on the views of search engine officials is curiously lacking.
A distressing account of algorithms run amok.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Noble, Safiya Umoja: ALGORITHMS OF OPPRESSION." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A520735712/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=37f7aad8. Accessed 14 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A520735712
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Author(s):
Safiya Umoja Noble
Release Date:
February 19, 2018
Publisher/Imprint:
NYU Press
Pages:
256
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Robert Fantina
In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble clearly explains how search engines, used by billions daily, are not an innocent, neutral vehicle by which to search for information. They are not benign; they are powered by programmers, human beings with their own prejudices and motives, sometimes seeking to foster a certain viewpoint, and sometimes merely reflecting their own, skewed version of reality.
Noble focuses on degrading stereotypes of women of African descent as a prime example of these prejudices, which translate to overt racism. For example, she cites the instance of entering a search for “three black teenagers” in 2010, and getting mug shots as the result. The search “black girls” in that same year brought the viewer to porn sites.
This might indicate that the problem could be easily solved: Programmers who set the various search parameters could be trained in how to leave their own prejudices behind.
Yet the simple explanation of individual prejudices creeping into the programs that power the search is naïve, at best. The purposes are far beyond the control of individuals. As Nobel explains: “They include decision-making protocols that favor corporate elites and the powerful, and they are implicated in global economic and social inequality.”
So as people search for “Michelle Obama” and receive results associating the former First Lady with apes, or see the White House, during President Obama’s term in office, shown as the “Nigga House,” their own perceptions are influenced, and these influences impact their votes, political donations and buying behaviors. Noble states that we must ask “questions about how technological practices are embedded with values, which often obscure the social realities within which representations are formed.”
Studies indicate that Google alone processes over 3.5 billion searches each day. It is a prime source of information for students, teachers, authors, journalists, and many others. The results that are given for any search all help to influence the searcher, and as indicated by the examples included herein, they are often far from accurate, and sometimes only serve to enhance negative stereotypes.
Noble describes entering the term “beautiful,” and shows a screen of pictures of white people. She entered “ugly”, and the results were a racial mix.
This reviewer duplicated the experiment, but added “people” to each search (entering just “beautiful” brought very few pictures of people; the results were sunsets, flowers, etc.) “Beautiful people” resulted in images of mainly white women, with a few white men, and a smattering of women of color. The search “ugly people” resulted in a far more equal number of men, women, whites, and people of color.
Do people naturally think of white women as beautiful, and non-white women as unattractive, or is society being programmed to believe this? If so, what else are the various search engines programming society to believe? Where is the limit to their power?
Things can change. After writing extensively about the racism so prevalent in the results from the Google search “black girls,” Noble reported that, in 2012, two years after she first became aware of the situation, the results from that search were far more reasonable.
When this reviewer did the search, he found that the first page of results, with one exception, showed articles about the challenges black girls face in schools and the larger society. The exception was a dating site called “Black Girls are Easy.” Doing a search on “white girls” brought up a page of sources to obtain a book by that name.
Due at least in part to Noble’s efforts, there is a reduction of overt racism against women of color in Google searches. But her research and efforts expose a much larger problem, of which racism is but one ugly component. Support for imperialism, colonization, wars, and a myriad of other social ills can become accepted, even by those victimized by them, because of careless or contrived search engine results.
Algorithms of Oppression is a wakeup call to bring awareness to the biases of the internet, and should motivate all concerned people to ask why those biases exist, and who they benefit.
Robert Fantina is the author of Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy. His articles on foreign Policy, most frequently concerning Israel and Palestine, have appeared in such venues as Counterpunch and WarIsaCrime.org.