Aleaga 1 Vincent Aleaga Prof. Wilson Carter Writing Composition 1 29 October 2019 Media Bias Created by Internet Search Engines In discussions of the bias created by the media today, a controversial issue is that internet search engines create significant bias through search autocomplete and results. While some argue that bias is entrenched by the people themselves not the internet, others contend that the internet is the reason for more negative biases in society today. That is not to say that bias is solely dependent on what people are seeing in the media, however, it does play a huge role in biases developed and spread throughout the population. The widespread use of the internet around the world allows just about infinite biases on all topics. However, this allows for the creation of many negative biases which can be dangerous to the world at large. Many people say that the internet is the sole reason for the proliferating of specific negative biases that cause problems all around the world. This is a contributing factor towards the spreading of negative biases; however, people make decisions for themselves. They have their own opinions of how things should be and why. It depends on how people utilize internet search engines that determines if negative biases are spread or not. The internet is simply a pathway with freedom to access any biases people have, positive, or negative. While negatively biased search results and autocomplete do appear in the search engines we use today, it is not the search engine itself to blame for these prejudices that are being spread throughout society. Aleaga 2 Internet search engines have complicated, yet simple algorithms that display results and search guesses based on whatever other people have searched and the links they clicked on. A journalist named Carole Cadwalladr writes about this topic and claims that the internet is spreading bias on its own and influencing what society thinks about different subjects. For example, in her article, Google, Democracy, and the Truth about Internet Search, she explains different instances when searches seem to only have negatively biased results and not enough different point of views. She says in one instance, “This is what I type: ‘a-r-e w-o-m-e-n.’ And Google offers me just two choices, the first of which is: ‘Are women evil?’ I press return. Yes, they are. Every one of the 10 results ‘confirms’ that they are...”. She goes on to highlight some of the results and exhibits their negative bias on the subject. However, the internet is not at fault for these relatively disgraceful search results. The internet is a resource that is accessible by anyone and everyone with the freedom to search and read about whatever they wish. It allows people to post whatever they want and share their opinions (/biases) with the world. Search engines run on self-adjusting algorithms that attempt to display whatever people want to see the most at the time that they are searching something. The searches and actions by the people who use these search engines determines the results and autocompletions that other people see when using these algorithmic search engines. Therefore, the creation and spreading of specific biases, ideas, and opinions is a direct result of the people that are using the search engines. This freedom that internet search engines give people can lead to negatively biased initial results. In the article, Search bias quantification: investigating political bias in social media and web search, this is explained in further detail. “In… polarizing scenarios, where multiple different perspectives about the searched topic exist (e.g., political candidates or events), the bias in the top search results can influence the user’s opinion and shape public opinion towards (or Aleaga 3 away from) certain competing perspectives. However, such biases of search systems are challenging to detect and quantify, since multiple sources of bias exist (e.g., input data and ranking system) whose effects are hard to disentangle.” This is saying that because of the ranking system built into search engines’ algorithms, the top search results can have a specific bias that can alter the user’s ideas and opinions on specific subject matters. This is simply not the case for most “generic” searches on search engines. When people search polarizing matters however, there is sure to be bias that is caused by what people have searched and the links they most clicked on. This should be common sense that bias is going to be prevalent in specific searches because of different factors. These “biased searches” can be worked around in several different ways to maintain a self-convinced bias while looking at varying point of views. The only way we can avoid these negative biases today is to learn how to recognize them and adjust accordingly. In the article, What Biases are in my Internet Searches by Raja Ridgway, she explains a way to educate people on how to recognize these “biased searches”. She explains, “Educating ourselves and our students to be aware of the biases that exist on the internet and within searching is the first step, and we can do so without becoming experts in how searching algorithms work. Just as we continually prompt students to think about the biases and credibility of internet websites, we can also ask them to question the biases underlying their search results.” This, in my opinion, is the best way at the moment to avoid biased search results and maintain our own ideas and opinions. Educating ourselves and others on biased search results will allow for better understanding of these topics, as well as fewer negative biases being created throughout society. People who are “anti-internet” say that the internet is the reason for many of the unjust biases throughout our population. However, they need to realize that it is the people themselves Aleaga 4 that have the freedom to use this resource and affect what information goes through it. The single fact that the internet is where many of the biases that we see today are spread, does not mean that the internet is the reason for it. If we waste our energy blaming the internet for these biases nothing will change and we will continue to see these unjust biases grow and grow. Once we realize that the internet is just a resource that we have the freedom to use however we wish, we will better understand the unjust biases that can be bred and propagated throughout it. Just as we learn to handle biases in the real world, we must learn to observe when these biases are present when searching the internet as well. Simply blaming the internet for the biases spread within it will not mend anything. These search engines are running on algorithms that adjust correspondingly based on however people use them. The best way to avoid biased searches is by learning to identify them and adjusting duly. We cannot blame the internet for the biases that exist among it that were created by us. Aleaga 5 Works Cited Schiffer, Adam Joseph. Evaluating Media Bias. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. Ridgway, Raja. What Biases Are in My Internet Searches? National Science Teachers Association, 1 Oct. 2019. Graff, Gerald, et al. "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: with Readings. W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
