Algorithmic probing: Prompting offensive Google results and their moderation

IF 6.5 1区社会学 Q1 SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY

Big Data & Society Pub Date : 2023-01-01 DOI:10.1177/20539517231176228

Richard A. Rogers

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引用次数: 3

Abstract

Google results have been scrutinized over the years for what they privilege, be it the surface web, the powerful, optimized webpages, the personalized and/or their own properties. For some time now, another type of Google returns also has been the source of attention: the offensive result. The following revisits a selection of offensive and other problematic results found by journalists and researchers alike. In a technique termed ‘algorithmic probing’, the prompting queries are re-run to study what has come of these results in Google Web and Image Search but mainly in Google Autocompletion. The question concerns a different kind of privileging – Google's hierarchy of concerns – or the extent to which certain categories as well as languages are moderated and others less so. In all, it was found that Google heavily moderates religion, ethnicities and sexualities (albeit with gaps) but leaves alone stereotypes of gendered professions as well as ageism. It also moderates to a greater degree in English compared to southern European and Balkan languages. The article concludes with a discussion of the stakes of Google's moderation, including its uneven coverage.

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算法探测:提示攻击性谷歌结果及其节制

b谷歌的搜索结果多年来一直在仔细审查他们的特权，无论是表面的网页，强大的，优化的网页，个性化和/或他们自己的属性。一段时间以来，另一种类型的谷歌回击也引起了人们的关注:进攻结果。以下是记者和研究人员发现的一些令人反感的和其他有问题的结果。在一种称为“算法探测”的技术中，提示查询被重新运行，以研究谷歌Web和图像搜索中这些结果的结果，但主要是谷歌自动完成。这个问题涉及到另一种特权——b谷歌的关注层次——或者某些类别和语言被缓和的程度，而另一些则不那么缓和。总的来说，谷歌在很大程度上缓和了宗教、种族和性取向(尽管存在差距)，但没有涉及性别职业的刻板印象和年龄歧视。与南欧和巴尔干地区的语言相比，英语语言也更温和。文章最后讨论了b谷歌节制的利害关系，包括其不均衡的覆盖范围。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Big Data & Society SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

10.90

自引率

10.60%

发文量

审稿时长

11 weeks

期刊介绍： Big Data & Society (BD&S) is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes interdisciplinary work principally in the social sciences, humanities, and computing and their intersections with the arts and natural sciences. The journal focuses on the implications of Big Data for societies and aims to connect debates about Big Data practices and their effects on various sectors such as academia, social life, industry, business, and government. BD&S considers Big Data as an emerging field of practices, not solely defined by but generative of unique data qualities such as high volume, granularity, data linking, and mining. The journal pays attention to digital content generated both online and offline, encompassing social media, search engines, closed networks (e.g., commercial or government transactions), and open networks like digital archives, open government, and crowdsourced data. Rather than providing a fixed definition of Big Data, BD&S encourages interdisciplinary inquiries, debates, and studies on various topics and themes related to Big Data practices. BD&S seeks contributions that analyze Big Data practices, involve empirical engagements and experiments with innovative methods, and reflect on the consequences of these practices for the representation, realization, and governance of societies. As a digital-only journal, BD&S's platform can accommodate multimedia formats such as complex images, dynamic visualizations, videos, and audio content. The contents of the journal encompass peer-reviewed research articles, colloquia, bookcasts, think pieces, state-of-the-art methods, and work by early career researchers.