Davidson College Fall 2018
In an article titled “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism,” Noble discussed Google’s racist and sexist search suggestions mainly pertaining to women of color. In the beginning of the article, Noble talked about her experience with searching the words “black girls” using Google’s search engine in 2009 and 2011. Both times, her search results were… Read more about Racist Beauty Ideals
After reading the excerpt from Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, I was curious to see if Google was still engaging in racist/sexist/___-phobic behavior, so I decided to see if they had updated their search results algorithm at all. Unsurprisingly, I found that Google’s suggested searches for the phrases “Why are black women ___,” “Why …
Google search algorithms are not impartial. They can be biased, just like their designers. Safiya Noble points out that search engines are not magically impartial arbiters; search engines are created by people and reflect the racist and sexist biases of their designers. Search patterns matter because search engines like Google are becoming increasingly powerful disseminators […]
Jason Farman’s “Fidget Spinners” (2017) brought several new insights to my understanding of waiting. For one, he cited and confirmed my sneaking suspicion that progress bars actually have little to do with the data transfer in the moment. Relatedly, I found Farman’s piece to be particularly profound in the reframing of the conversation about speed …
Continue reading “It’s all about the journey… and the line… and the wait.”
This past summer, I worked in a co-working space in Philadelphia. The room included my team (an accounting firm), and an ecommerce team. I can tell you honestly and without a doubt that most people working in ecommerce are greedy and immoral. To start, they were always complaining about the lack of clicks from ads …
Continue reading “The Greed and Profiling of Search Engines”
This week, I watched “Nosedive” which is the first episode of the third series of Black Mirror. This episode is set in a world where people rate each other from one to five stars, and all of these ratings can impact their socioeconomic status. The central character, Lacie, is a young woman who is really […]
One might say the entire point of the Black Mirror is to make viewers see themselves as characters, causing them to critically examine the role which technology plays in their lives. As a fan of the series, I can’t recall a single episode which I felt completely comfortable while watch. Nosedive is no exception. During …
Continue reading “Nosediving into Subtle Societal Criticisms”
https://www.youth.sg/Our-Voice/Opinions/2015/6/Being-social-in-real-life-vs-being-real-on-social-media Episode one from season three of Black Mirror portrays a society where the people rate each other on a scale from one to five stars for every interaction they have. These ratings have an impact on their socioeconomic status, which impacts things such as where they can live and the people they can hang… Read more about Living for Social Media!
To me, the most enjoyable moment of Black Mirror’s episode “Nosedive” is the conclusion of the episode, when Lacie finally decides to freely speak her mind during a conversation in jail with another stranger. Partially mirroring the premise of Feed, the episode revolves around Lacie’s use of a social media app which is utilized through an implant …
Loosely interpreted… “Spoilers” for Black Mirror’s Season 3 Episode 1: Nosedive are contained in this post. Black Mirror as a series has almost certainly got more than its fair share of attention. For those few who somehow may be unfamiliar, the show consists of a series of short dramas which predict the myriad of ways in …
