Why do you use Google for search?
Is it because it’s the only search engine you’ve ever used?
Or because you believe Google provides the best unbiased search results?
In his talk at TEDxOslo 2015, author and journalist Andreas Ekström, discusses search engines and the philosophical impossibility to get truly objective search results.
His case studies of the search results for United States of America First Lady Michele Obama and Anders Behring Breivik, the terrorist behind the 2011 Norwegian attacks that killed 80 people, are fascinating in what Google did, and didn’t do.
Ekström reminds us that no matter what search terms you use, the algorithm will include some type of moral bias:
…behind every algorithm is always a person, a person with a set of personal beliefs that no code can ever completely eradicate.
Check out Ekström’s eight-minute TEDxOslo talk video.
Source: TED
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Have you thought about the bias in search engine results? Share your thoughts in the comments.
