Should search algorithms be moral? A conversation with Google’s in-house philosopher

In a recent research study, sixty percent of Facebook users had no idea that their newsfeed was filtered. This is a scary phenomenom. It means that a majority of people are unaware that the information they see is a biased subset of the total information available to them through their network. This effect is dubbed the “filter bubble”, and there’s a great TedTalk about it.

In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for all users. This new era of personalization changes our online experience, and in particular, how we learn and what information we’re exposed to. In an effort to please users, the news we see is often pleasant and fits our beliefs. The filtering done by Google, Facebook and the like is virtually invisbile, leaving us unaware of what we’re missing.

Left unchecked, this hidden filtering can begin to morph into a Big Brother-like online world in which large tech giants selectively choose what information to show to you, and subsequently, what you identify as the truth. In Feb. 2012, the Pew Internet and American Life survey found that “73% of search engine users say that most or all the information they find as they use search engines is accurate and trustworthy.” The coupling of these two phenomena, a faith in returned search results, and results that are both personalized and have no gurantee of truthfullness, results in people having a false sense of confidence in their world view and events happening around them.

As a simple example, say you search for nearby synagauges, and have purchased a menorah on Amazon. Google’s algorithms then classify you with a high level of confidence as a Jew. Say that then when you search Google for the West Bank, all you see are anti-Palestenian news articles. It could be hard to formulate a comprehensive, informed opinion on the issue, and you might not even realize that your news is being filtered. This is extremely dangerous. On a similar note, while visiting Hebron (a PA-controlled town in the West Bank), I saw this shirt in the market:

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