Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new imperatives and demands push to the fore increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet, critical-information scholars continue to demonstrate how digital technology and its narratives are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial, disembodied, or lacking positionality. Technologies consist of a set of social practices, situated within the dynamics of race, gender, class, and politics, and in the service of something—a position, a profit motive, a means to an end. In this talk, Safiya Umoja Noble will examine the power struggles over representation on the web, and the consequences of marginalization and misrepresentation in commercial information platforms like Google search.