Search Engines Can Be Feedback Loops
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“It’s the phrases we use that really matter when use search engines.”
Is technology neutral? Are digital platforms unbiased? Scholars have spent a lot of time thinking about whether technology, specifically the internet and its digital platforms, is neutral and unbiased, and have concluded that the answer is no. Digital devices, social media platforms, and search engines aren’t neutral, amoral, or unbiased. These devices and platforms were created with a specific purpose. They change the way we interact with each other, and the way in which we gather information.
Some Conservative Christians and perhaps society at large believe that search engines are neutral. This lack of understanding of how search engines operate, leads many to think that search engines serve as pipelines to truth rather than mirrors that reflect bias.
In 2018, Data and Society released the results of an ethnography written by Dr. Francesca Tripodi, former professor of sociology and media scholar at James Madison University, that documented the media habits, consumption, and religious media literacy of a group of young conservative Christians.
These mostly young white conservative Republicans — whose beliefs are centered around Christian faith, family, the Constitution and national security — are highly skeptical of, what they considered liberal, mainstream media outlets. Those observed and interviewed also read conservative media outlets. However, according to Tripodi, they did have some measure of distrust for some conservative media. One person, Hannah, acknowledged conservative media bias but thought conservative media was more trustworthy than news outlets like CNN and others the group considered liberal.
“While the people in my study consumed news from a wide variety of sources, including mainstream outlets, they took the information with a grain of salt,” wrote Tripodi in an article on Medium.
In an attempt to counter what they understand as the liberal media and its perceived agenda, this group, armed with a conservative Christian worldview, used Google to conduct its own research in order to nail down the truth. The problem, as the research shows, is they did so with a lack of understanding of how algorithms operate Google search.
In the research, Tripodi writes that the group used a method called scriptural inference, a term she coined, as a way to search Google.
“The conservatives I observed all hold the belief that certain fundamental truths exist, and they critically interrogate media messages in the same way they approach the Bible, focusing on specific passages and comparing what they read, see, and hear to their lived experiences,” Tripodi wrote in her research.
Scriptural inference is a familiar practice within religious groups, not just Christianity. It’s an interpretation method used to understand religious texts. Another term for it is eisegesis. An example of this approach would be to look at a particular scripture and interpret it through a personal ideological lens without regard to historical and linguistic context.
Romans 13 is a text that is often cited by some politically conservative and some liberal Christians to say that God exclusively endorses a small government. “In what follows, I shall argue that, when properly interpreted, biblical teaching implies a minimal government with a specific function to be mentioned shortly,” wrote JP Moreland, theologian, and philosopher at The Institute For Faith, Work, & Economics. “I will begin by describing the three-way worldview struggle in our country and explain why two of those worldviews have a vested interest in big government.”
More recently, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited this passage of scripture in defense and validation of the Department of Justice’s immigration policy.
“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said, according to Religion News Services. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
This was also one of many texts used to justify slavery in America.
“This practice of scriptural inference bolsters their mistrust of mainstream media and supports their need to ‘fact check’ the news,” Tripodi writes. “Since Google is seen as a neutral purveyor of information, it becomes a conduit for accessing ‘unbiased’ information.”
Though the research only looked at conservative Christians, Tripodia said in an interview that “scriptural inference isn’t specific to conservative christians (or one political party).”
By in large, political ideologies inform what phrases we use to search Google. For example, Tripodi said during our conversation that if people consider themselves to be liberal, during the Kavanaugh fiasco they might have searched the phrase “Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s anti-abortion stance.” Google will then only display news articles associated with that phrase.
“It’s the phrases that really matter rather than searching for something very general, (like searching the phrase Brett Kavanaugh), you’re going to get very different returns,” Tripodi said. “This is why I say it reaffirms our biases, because how we search and what we search.”
“What I’m arguing is that these various small chips, bits of text change what Google will return to you, ” Tripodi added.
“…simple syntax differences can create and reinforce ideological biases in news-gathering,” wrote Tripodi in her report.
To add more clarity and how digital feedback loops can lead to possible harm, Tripodi used as an example Dylann Roof, a white nationalist, domestic terrorist who killed nine African-Americans while they attended a bible study at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2016. Roof said he kept seeing Trayvon Martin’s name all over the internet and felt as if the media and perhaps the public had sided with Martin. George Zimmerman shot Martin in what he called self-defense. After Roof read a Wikipedia article about the case, it cemented his belief that Zimmerman was right to shoot Martin, and he became even more convinced that people were supporting Martin over Zimmerman. In Roof’s mind, the media was giving Martin and his family undue sympathy.
Roof then went to Google to search for the phrase, “black on white crime,” according to NPR. The Google search engine led Roof to multiple white supremacist websites. It was hard to tell which one inspired him to comment on the violent act. Whatever Roof found on those websites, radicalized him, and falsely confirmed for him that black people were more evil than whites and that black people, more importantly to Roof, delighted in murdering white people, and that black men were raping white women.
“How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?” Dylann wrote in what is called his Manifesto.
One of the results of all this is that Google has since changed its search results.
“Now when you Google ‘black on white crime,’ Google has fixed that algorithm because ‘black on white crime’ doesn’t exist. It’s a red herring — a dog whistle for racism,” said Tripodi. “When this was happening, this was when Google wasn’t aware of this flaw and how people were manipulating their search engine optimization to lead stories to radicalize racists, so when you search things it really matters significantly.”
I checked to see if this was true. I Google searched the phrase “ black on white crime.” A Wikipedia article titled “ Race and Crime in America ” was the first to appear, followed by a Southern Poverty Law Center article titled “ The Biggest Lie In The White Supremacist Propaganda Playbook.” No white supremacist website appeared.
photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash.
There are other examples of how Google can operate as an ideological feedback loop. Noah Berlatsky wrote an op-ed about an associate professor at UCLA in the Departments of Information Studies and African American Studies named Safiya U. Noble. When she searched the term ‘Black Girls,’ the first option Google offered was a black porn website. (Google changed this search result. Now Black Girls Code, a non-profit, is the first search result).
Referring to Noble’s book, “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism,” Berklastly writes: “Noble points out that search engines are not magically impartial arbiters. Search algorithms are created by people and reflect, not just the racist and sexist biases of users, but the racist and sexist biases of their designers.”
“I think the problem is that the platform isn’t neutral because the platform is built by people — and people aren’t neutral,” Tripodi said, alluding to Tarleton Gillespie’s work on the non-neutrality of tech.
Some Christians’, Democratic or Republican, belief that technology is neutral may be rooted in their theology of creation. In general, Christians believe God gave humans the ability to create certain tools and technological devices for the common good of the world.
“…God created its materials, its forces, and its inventors’ brains and skills,” writes David Murray, professor of Old Testament and practical theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, for HeadHeartHand, a website that encourages Christians to think about technology from a biblical perspective.
The raw, earthly materials provided to us by God to create are neutral, awaiting humans to shape them into something useful. Therefore, these tools and devices created by humanity are considered neutral only in the sense that they can be used for good or evil. A knife is considered, for example, neutral because it can be used to prepare food as well as kill someone. Likewise, a computer can be used for entertainment and work, but it can also be used to watch pornography. Neither have any moral implications and sit untouched by the moral universe.
Adam Graber, a graduate student studying digital theology at St. John’s College in Durham, England, said that he’s heard other Christians refer to technology as a new “wineskin,” a phrase taken from Matthew 9:17. According to Graber, the imagery invokes a container being filled with wine. The wine symbolizes the information and is held as more important than the container, which is the neutral purveyor. In this case, the container, the technology, only serves one purpose — to hold the wine. And that wine is considered pure or at least truthful and is not tainted or shaped by the container it is constantly touching.
But there is something wrong with this oversimplification. Technology is not neutral. Graber said some Christians need to understand how technology reshapes us, and more importantly, how technology works. They need to understand that Google has become society’s personal librarian, but a librarian who reflects our own biases back at us.
John Dyer is the Dean of Enrollment Services and Educational Technology and Adjunct Professor in Media Arts and Worship at Dallas Theological Seminary. He has been thinking and teaching about artificial intelligence for years. He advocates for protestant church congregates to use digital technology for the common good. He’s also one of many voices calling for Christians to rethink their theology of technology and the neutral approach to it.
“To continue to say that technology is amoral and neutral allows Christians to escape the real issues that are involved with dealing with the fact that tech is never neutral,” said Dyer, who wrote “From the Garden to the City: Redeeming the Corrupting Power of Technology. ”
A general belief that technology is neutral comes with unintended consequences, according to Dyer.
“The problem as I see it, is that the idea of neutrality is where many Christians end their understanding of technology,” Dyer wrote in an email. “But if we stop here, and claim that technology is neutral or amoral, then all that matters is how we use it. (This thinking) short circuits our ability to truly understand how technology works.”
What is the way forward in a culture that has seemingly put its faith in Google as one of many arbiters of truth? One way is that “people need to spend more time in libraries speaking to librarians,” Tripodi said.
“We have off-shored a lot of the work of librarians into Google, thinking that Google is the same as searching for information with someone who has a large amount of training and education on how to find information,” said Tripodi. “I don’t think that necessarily creates neutrality, but I do think librarians could help a person focus their search for knowledge.”
Tripodi said it is fine for people to use Google as a way to search for a local pizza joint. However, she added: “If you’re going to Google to search in order to find answers to existential questions or for information on political candidates, then I don’t think you’re going to the right place.”
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