algorithms of oppression essay

Algorithms of oppression: Safiya Umoja Noble’s powerful exploration of search engines’ underlying hegemony and their racist, sexist practices. Shelly A. Galliah. Michigan Technological University,, [email protected]. Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/theliminal.

Part of the challenge of understanding algorithmic oppression is to understand that mathematical formulations to drive automated deci-sions are made by human beings. While we often think of terms such as “big data” and “algorithms” as being benign, neutral, or objective, they are anything but.

On October 21, 2013, the United Nations launched a campaign directed by the advertising agency Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai using “genuine Google searches” to bring attention to the sexist and discriminatory ways in which women are regarded and denied human rights.

Her 2018 book Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism critiques the reproducibility of racist ideology within the machinations of search algorithms developed in western countries, and she does this from the perspective of software programming, cultural...

Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the internet—long framed as a value-free tool for advancing human knowledge—frequently replicates the flawed societal power structures in which it was created, perpetuating stereotypes and racism under a guise of impartiality.

Algorithms of Oppression is a text based on over six years of academic research on Google search algorithms, examining search results from 2009 to 2015. The book addresses the relationship between search engines and discriminatory biases.

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.

Algorithms of Oppression is an essential, disturbing read examining the socio-politics of our search patterns and their according results; it is a book probing the dark side of the internet, what the author calls the “most unregulated social experiment of our times” (p. 6).

In Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, Safiya Umoja Noble brings together Black feminist studies, library and information sciences (LIS), and media studies to carve out the field of Black feminist technology studies (BFTS).

A revealing look at how negative biases against women of color are embedded in search engine results and algorithms.