Silicon Staffing: Understanding Search Engine Bias and the SEO Challenge

Silicon Staffing: Understanding Search Engine Bias and the SEO Challenge
 
It's in fact such systematic biases which are the most insidious since they frequently go unnoticed and unquestioned. Even robots have biases. Any decision process, whether human or algorithm, about what to include, exclude, or emphasize processes of which Google News has many has the potential to introduce bias. 

What's intriguing with regards to algorithms though is the decision criteria available to the algorithm might seem innocuous while at the same time leading to output that's perceived as biased. For instance, unless directly programmed to do so, the Google News algorithm won't play favorites when selecting representative articles for a cluster on a local political campaign its essentially non partisan. 

But one of its criteria for choosing articles is frequency of appearance. That might appear neutral, but if one of the candidates in that race consistently a little more media coverage, that criterion might make Google News output appear partisan. 

Algorithms might lack the semantics for understanding higher order concepts like stereotypes or racism, but if, for example, the simple and measurable criteria they use to exclude info from visibility somehow do correlate with race divides, they might appear to have a racial bias. 

Simple decision criteria that lead to complex inclusion and exclusion decisions are one way that bias, frequently unwittingly, can manifest in algorithms. 

Other mechanisms through which algorithms introduce bias into news media can be illustrated by considering the paramount info process of summarization. In a way, reporting is really about outlining reality. 

You may protest: Its also about narrative and storytelling! and you'd be right, since few things are more dull as a dry summary. But before the story, the reporter has to first make decisions about which events to include, what context can safely be excluded, and what to emphasize as truly mattering all of that have the potential to tint the story with bias.


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