Reading Annotation 3.2 Noble Ch. 1

The first chapter from Noble is a clear mission statement, nearly wandering into territory where it wouldn't be difficult to argue it's more of a manifesto. Illustrating her reasons behind the burning questions regarding the algorithmic biases on the internet are clarified by Noble, beginning with the stark differences in the results of search engine results where gender and race are concerned. Her reaction during the initial anecdote with her stepdaughter feels equal parts shock and expectation, as she had earlier been recalling her introduction to the search results regarding "black girls" leading to a variety of sites focused on pornography and the sexualized commodification of black women. Later, as she looked more in depth, she realized that what had been long touted as a reliable and unattached source of information incapable of bias, was in practice actually reinforcing and perpetuating virtually every conceivable negative stereotype. The algorithm, in particular the algorithms used by such large entities such as Google were fundamentally flawed, thereby producing search results based upon enormous amounts of historical data, not necessarily based on anything to do with the user making the query. When she further explored the history and the process by which these types of results continually come back, she noticed that the effects of commerce and sponsorship creating a large part of the disparity could not be ignored. Google is able to alter the order of preference in their search results based on revenue that companies pay in order to move higher in the order of the search results. In many cases, this can lead to not only to the aforementioned negative stereotypes, but also to the dissemination of misinformation. This due to the combination of said algorithm and the ability of companies with a vested interest in serving a certain narrative better able to affect the outcomes of search results by financial means. On the other hand, using search engines that don't utilize a similar format that is used by well known browsers like Google or Bing are a bit problematic to navigate. It's fair to say, that they cater to no one and is so reflected in their results. One such browser is "Meekd" which utilizes strictly raw search results, with no cookies or sponsored content being allowed to alter the results. I will say, it was rather boring and alien to me. However, it was refreshing to know that they (and many other companies like them) are putting out browsers and search engines that refuse to collect any personal data or allow any sponsored content to affect my search results. I can say that in the Meekd search engine, I typed in "Black Girls", and the results had BlackPeopleMeet.com as the top result, followed by several sites dedicated to various levels of support for black girls; not a single porn site. Bing was nearly all ads for porn; Google fared slightly better, as there was various sites associated with positive content for "black girls", but had a sponsored ad for "Ebony web cams" at the bottom of the page. It seems there's still a lot of work to do in the main stream of search engines.