Biases Attitudes Toward Muslim Women

Google has become the world’s most popular search engine with over a trillion searches per year. And, with over 70,000 employees, some personal biases make their way into the algorithms operating Google’s search engine as Snow insists that “Algorithms promote some results above others, and even a seemingly neutral piece of code can reflect society’s biases”(Snow). Biases observed on Google include racial, religious, gender, and with company size. And, as 87% of people in the U.S. turn towards the internet and its major distributors of information, like Google, these biases become an uncontrollable danger. Such dangers can be seen in the stimulus packet in two articles showing the theme of biased views, “Attitudes Toward Muslim Women in the

The article on the bias of historians shows the theme of biased views by giving an explanation to how eyewitness historians show historical bias in favor of their society as they have a personal view of their society. The sources from the stimulus packet show the theme of biased views and relate to how search engines, like Google, allow an outflow of bias on the internet. The issue of bias in search results is prevalent in today’s technological age, and as stated by Le and Kumar, “This bias is going to lead to larger social, cultural and political consequences on how search can be capitalized and analyzed in the future”(Le and Kumar). These issues led to the question of: how can society’s biases be removed from Google’s algorithms? The first part of the solution is to educate people on biases and how to keep their personal biases out of their search results, and the second part is to put regulations of how Google can function and on how much information their algorithms can interpret about individuals in determining their search

One way in which these social biases can be regulated is through government regulation. The government already regulates television and radio for the public good, and the FCC participates in the same function. But, “Google, with its virtual monopoly on web search, arguably has more power over knowledge and information than television or radio in the modern era” (Berlatsky), giving it a greater need for regulation. With more and more people turning towards search engines for information, the government needs to step in and regulate search results in the same manner it does television and radio. There is existing bias on television and radio, but it is regulated for the public good and the same needs to be done online. While many may see more government regulation as negative, it would create a safer environment for user’s to find unbiased information. Another way social biases can be regulated is through educating users on how to monitor their personal searches. Some privacy advocates are fearful of some of Google’s new proposals to change results based on your friends’ searches and likes through Google+. And Mat Honan, a writer for Gizmodo, states, “the problem with social search and personal results is that it biases the results based on the perspective of your friends” (Magid). But, there are ways to