UC Distinguished Scholars Series: Dr. Safiya Noble

Dr. Safiya Noble's book: Algorithms of Oppression: https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/

• • • Background: Dr. Noble started their career in urban advertising and marketing.
    • Adopting digital technology in advertising – working with media buyers to have ads posted in big search engines (Google)
    • Most of the things that we experience in marketing start in niche/ethnic environments before they grow out of them
    • Broad issue of the political economy of the internet
    • The book really became a space to explore politics within internet technologies
    • Digitization of hate: white supremacy – the internet being used to encourage hate
    • Google is driven by advertising agents – those willing to pay the most will show up in the search results
      • Algorithm is driven by money
    • What was the goal for this book:
      • Understanding the search engine and its pros/cons
      • How to make these technologies more transparent
      • Taking the census and the racial/ethnic/gender categories (unreliable but major institutions use these data blocks) and using gender/ethnic keywords
      • The most notable key word search is what happens when you search "black girls"
        • 80% of the results were pornography or hyper-sexualization of black girls
        • The same was true for latina girls and asian girls
      • Not the same when searching white girls
      • Early responses to this research: how dare you say that Google is racist
      • 10 years ago, when talking about these technologies and their role in society it was hard to understand the consequences. People thought of these technologies as benign
      • Google replacing the Public Health Care system
      • Profound consequences:
        • 2016 first female presidential candidate
        • Jan 6, white supremacists attempting to overthrow the US govt
        • Questioning of Science