Journal of Fintech and Sustainable Innovation
Vol. II. 2017 Submitted: May. 2017- Approved: Sep. 2017
Article updated Dec, 2024
Andreou, Elena
SEO Specialist | Personal Branding Consultant | Business Strategist
Information is one of the most valuable commodities for people, and since the beginning of life, people have been constantly searching for, comparing, and analyzing information. Nowadays, in the digital era, more and more people seek information on the web. With information overload, there is a growing need to critically assess the quality of information.
The aim of this research is to understand and analyze, through the theories presented within the thematic framework of KPS 514, the role that search engines play in our lives, whether they hold any inherent values, and how they may influence our way of thinking and decision-making. The purpose is to analyze whether Google’s algorithms systematically tweak search results to promote certain information and to uncover the values behind these algorithms.
It is well acknowledged that information is vital for our life, but what is happening now with so much information around us? Back in 1945 Bush stated that the only obstacle in science and human kind evolution is the overloading information and the difficulty to handle and the difficulty to handle and assess such large volumes. “The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record.”
Identifying the role of the information systems in information retrieval in modern sciences, in the article “The Data Science Revolution” Smith and Cohen pointed what it seems to be a reality, that within the next ten years computers will move beyond their existing roles as our assistants and become our advisors. They state that the goal of the computer should be to reinforce the human being by completing its capabilities.
Introna and Nissenbaum emphasized that search engines constitute a powerful source of access and accessibility within the web [pg. 170], and pose the question “How does a search engine go about creating its database and what does it store in it?” [pg.171]
Although most of search engines claim that the ultimate goal is to deliver to people faster and most accurate search results,
many researches and case studies showed that the so called “search engine manipulation” is not just an accusation.
According to Introna and Nissenbaum such biases run counter to the basic architecture of the web as well as to the values and ideals that have fuelled widespread support for its growth and development. They argue that search engines started to influence our social and political life since algorithms have the power to direct our search to particular results or drive us away from particular search results. [pg. 169]
There are rumours that there is a real war behind the scene between the search engines, with the set goal to become the next invisible ruler of the world.
It is widely recognized that each search engine algorithm has different criteria to asses and rank web pages. But how do the algorithms work? Do they have any values?
In an attempt to define what “values” mean Knobel and Bowker[1] citing the philosopher of science Jacob Metcalf explain the differences between values and concept well known as ethics. “Ethics are a set of prescriptions (nouns), while values are tied to action (verbs)” [pg.28]. As Knobel and Bowker argue, since there are people that built those algorithms, it means that the algorithm reveals the values of its creators. There is an old saying: “Don’t fear the creation, but fear the creator who has created the creation you fear!”
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To assess the values of a search engine the focus of the discussion is on the effects that this technology has in society.
As well highlighted by Introna and Nissenbaun, philosophers of technology have recognised the intricate connection between technology and values- social, political and moral values. [pg. 181]
The goal of their article “Shaping the Web: Why the politics of search engines matters” was to gain the commitment of the designers and builders of search engines for two values: the value of fairness as well as to the set of values represented by the ideology of the Web as a public good.
Knobel and Bowker [pg. 27] agreed that search engines produce immense value by identifying, organizing, and providing information in response to users’ queries better and faster than any alternative. Information, technology and infrastructures are vital in all areas of our life.
Thinking of health, as mentioned in the article “Using Internet Search Engines to Obtain Medical Information” searching engines have become one of the most important means to obtain health and medical information. Moreover, many search engines have committed to help people with disabilities to access information.
The slogan “For people without disabilities, technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, technology makes things possible.” from ibm training manual 1991 is well known nowadays and it seems that most of technology developers are committed to improve the life of disables or health in general.
Many applications were created for students with learning disabilities, called assistive technology with the aim to improve education opportunities or provide access to communication tools. Not to forget about the new market created through search engine, the new system of learning evolved called distance learning or e-learning which gives the benefit of allowing people to develop a career without having to leave employment.
The search engines provide also information for academic research. According with Knobel and Bowker successful infrastructures serve people with different values. [pg. 26] i.e. Inclusion of GPS capability creates new opportunity regarding information tied to geography. If it is to analyse trade, businesses utilize search engines for advertising purposes, for gathering of information and data, to stay up-to-date on news and keeping track of competition. Search engines are vehicles for advertising and resources for research, let alone the e-coms were born due to search engines.
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According to Introna and Nissenbaun, the Web fulfills now the functions of the traditional public spaces; museums, beaches, schools and universities or parks (if we think that people before used to meet in parks whereas nowadays they meet in cyber forums or communities) and it is considered a public good. Search engines are the connection between people and the public good-the web.[pg. 176] Everybody has the right to use a public good, for information, for communication, commerce, learning, medium for artistic expression, space for recreation, connection with different applications and many other.
However, when analysing the example of mobile applications coupled with social networks like Loops and FourSquare, Knobel and Bowker question whether some given value puts in hazard another value i.e privacy. In their effort to tailor and provide the best search outcomes some search engines are accused of biasing the results, as in the case with the filter bubbles. But analysing filter bubbles, Pariser emphasizing its negative parts, had to admit that the search engines with their filter bubbles may be able to find you that next job or an investor for your small business [pg. 17].
If we take in consideration that the web is an open contribution system, where everyone has the right to upload any kind of material, and search for things or information that needs or likes, and we know that the algorithm observes and records what we have clicked and the search engine returns or shows to us things that believes that we are interested in, then why do we blame search engines returning biased results? As Pariser explained, they “may be just because they’re increasingly biased to share our own views”
According to Otterbacher and Hemphill who defined “bias” as where “preference is shown toward a type of content of contributor, such that those exhibiting certain properties are systematically ranked lower (or higher) than others”, it is well recognized and accepted that to a certain degree bias occurs in every open contribution system and that bias is not necessarily bad.
In the last couple of years, Google was many times subject of investigation as to its algorithms biases the search results either to favour its content, to hide its competitor content or to promote some particular interests.
Google, in particular, has been the subject of much of this criticism on the grounds that its organic search results—those generated algorithmically—favours its own products and services at the expense of those of its rivals.
In order to fairly assess such criticisms two aspects will be evaluated: Google values and its contribution to the society and the results retrieved from a series of searches.
4 types of search will be conducted focusing on the analysis of the first 10 exclusively organic[1] results of the 4 types of searches, eliminating the paid advertising:
To avoid any confusion the results from the first search will be encoded with 1A, 1B, 1C, ….etc and consequently the results from the fourth search will be encoded with 4A, 4B, 4C…etc
The results will be analysed as to which degree the title, the photos and the article have a positive, neutral or negative connotation with the purpose to create the said feeling in relation to the refugee matter.
Positive scores can thus take 3 values (slightly positive, positive and strongly positive) negative scores again 3 values (slightly negative, negative and strongly negative) and neutral only 1 value.
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For example: a strongly positive score will indicate that the date, the title, the publisher and the brief of content create a strongly positive feeling to the reader in relation to the refugee matter. The search was conducted on December 2nd 2017 in Cyprus.
One important factor that will be analysed is the association between the words “refugees” and “migrant” to create a negative sentiment or the connection between them
as a chronical factor since the “emigrant crisis” was followed by the “refugee crisis”. The term “emigrant crisis” was adopted to label the crisis created by the many emigrants who left their countries seeking more promising life and opportunities.
The term “refugee crisis” was adopted to label the crisis created by the refugees in 2015 who left their countries because of the war.
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A brief comparison of search 1 with search 2, search 2 with search 3 revealed very small differences on the results, which is considered not enough for the researcher to form a clear opinion and answer the research question. For example, comparing the results from the Search No 2 with the Search No 3 for the same keywords: “refugee crisis” the following are to be noted:
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First, 8 from the 10 articles are the same but the ranking order is slightly different, one position up or down (the same colour used for the same links emphasizes the small differences on ranking) Second, 3 links are in the same position, 4, 7 and 8. And third, the differences are only within the last two links which are different from each search.
It is believed that such small differences won’t give an answer to the research question and that further research is needed in this case as to have a solid base and form an opinion.
Since it looks that there are real differences between Google’s results from the first search with the results retrieved in DuckDuckGo, those results are chosen to be analysed in an attempt to determine a relative bias.
The domain is registered as .gr which means that it has Greek administrative autonomy, authority or control. The article is published by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung-Thessaloniki, a German non- profit political foundation adjacent to the party of the German Greens, which is active in the fields of ecology, sustainable development, democracy, human rights and gender equality. Since 2012 it is represented in Greece with an office in Thessaloniki.
Img. 01 from “Προσφυγική κρίση: Oδύσσεια προς την Ευρώπη”
This tribute highlights aspects of the refugee crisis. It analyses the lack of policies that made it difficult to manage by the EU Member States. Analysing the title, the word/name “Odysseus” seems to be the keyword which plays the role of inserting the “emotional factor” to the reader about the subject.
The name “Odysseus” in Greek mythology was one of the Greek heroes who fought in the Trojan War. The name is considered to be derived from Greek οδυσσομαι (odyssomai) “to hate” or “Odysseus” may mean “son of Zeus,” or “giver of pain.” As Bush stated, a human mind operates by association. “With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts”, and this is a game mastered well by all journalists. The term here is used to emphasize something painful and to create a very strong negative feeling. The negative feeling is meant to be pointed to the situations as such but the reader will associate it with the refugees.
It is to be noted that the photo doesn’t show refugees, but shows garbage and chaos and creates a feeling of disturbance. In the article it says that “the refugee crisis threatens the cohesion of Europe”.
The domain is registered as .en which means that it has English administrative autonomy, authority or control. The article is published by Wikipedia- English Edition which is a non-profit organization part of Wikimedia, a group of free knowledge websites with the mission of free knowledge for all. The title of the article is neutral, and the article describes only the facts in chronical order.
It has to be mentioned that the search was made for the keywords “refugee crisis” and the keywords that retrieved this search are “migrant crisis”. The article starts with the sentence “This article is about the 2010s crisis” and it is about the large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and Africa that crossed between Turkey and Greece.
Although the article initially focused on ’emigrants’ (with later updates suggesting a focus on Greek individuals, as the name ‘Nykterinos’ is likely Greek), it appears that the article continued in 2016 with the ‘refugee crisis’. The fact that the facts are displayed chronologically, and that the ’emigrant crisis’ is followed by the ‘refugee crisis,’ does not necessarily connect or create confusion between the two crises. The factor of ‘date’ will not be taken into account when analyzing, since the date of A1 is not available. The title and the content of article A1 show a tendency to create a strong negative attitude in the reader towards the ‘refugee phenomenon’, whereas article A4 displays the facts and could be classified as ‘neutral’…….
The data used in this research is not publicly available but can be requested from the author. Please reach out to Elena Andreou at ea@elenaandreou.com
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Introna and Nissenbaun, in the chapter “On Being Indexed,” recognized that each search engine has different criteria for indexing pages. Some of them use directories (i.e., Yahoo and Aliweb), while others automatically harvest URLs by means of spiders or robots. [pg. 171] Before forming any conclusion, it is crucial to define the factors on which each algorithm bases its ranking. Unfortunately, no clear policy was found for either Google or DuckDuckGo.
Ginsberg et al., in their article “Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data,” acknowledged one of Google’s values: the ability to accurately estimate percentages in each of the nine public health regions of the US 1-2 weeks ahead of CDC surveillance reports, which aids in early detection and defense against certain epidemics.In relation to this, the following statement was found on Google’s website about its commitment: “To further our commitment to accessibility, we have launched a global initiative called Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities. The program advances ideas and emerging technologies that increase independence and opportunity for people with disabilities.” And then there are applications that help you lie about your location, such as Google Latitude. If you have to lie to protect your privacy, where is the value then?
According to Introna and Nissenbaun, the blame lies in the fact that the value of fairness is often overlooked by businesses that choose to enter the advertising market. When money, competition, and pride are at stake, both petty and serious unfairnesses are common. In essence, the virtue of fairness establishes moral standards for decisions that affect others. We talk about justice and equity in the context of broader social issues and institutional obligations to individuals. Google’s Vision Statement is “to provide access to the world’s information in one click.” There is nothing wrong with putting those things in writing. Some companies, like Google (“Do no evil”), have decidedly non-specific but highly resonant mission statements, underscored by a distinct set of guiding principles that highlight value for the customer, fairness to all, and trust. Google’s philosophy begins with “Focus…” Google has been frequently criticized for delivering disinformation and propaganda (Jahna, slides 11, course week 8, Oss)
Otterbacher and Hemphill state, ‘Users often place great trust in information displays. For instance, they typically explore information artifacts in the order presented to them, and even rate them in that same order, regardless of the artifacts’ quality. We have also found that users may not experiment with alternative displays in OCS, even when such displays are available to enhance their interaction with information.'”Introna and Nissenbaun demanded back in 2000 “full and truthful disclosure of the underlying rules (or algorithms) governing indexing, searching, and prioritizing, stated in a way that is meaningful to the majority of Web users.
In conclusion, while advancements in information technology offer unprecedented access to knowledge, they also present significant challenges. As Otterbacher and Hemphill highlight, user trust in information displays can be easily manipulated, and the lack of transparency in search algorithms, as demanded by Introna and Nissenbaun, further complicates the issue. We still continue to live in a knowledge-obsessed wonderland, where information overload and its ensuing consequences are inevitable. The effort should be oriented towards balancing efforts to maximize technology’s positive contributions while simultaneously minimizing its negative consequences. This requires a multi-faceted approach, including fostering critical thinking skills among users, promoting transparency and accountability among technology developers, and developing ethical frameworks for the responsible use of information technology.
The data used in this research is not publicly available but can be requested from the author. Please reach out to Elena Andreou at ea@elenaandreou.com