The Ethics of Search Engine Results
With it being an election year, many bloggers and organizations have again begun to question the efficacy of the Google search engine. This article in particular highlights some complaints against Google about search results for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump supporters have charged that Google suppresses many negative search results about Clinton via its autocomplete search feature. They mention that any results about criminal activity are suppressed. They also mention that Bing and Yahoo do not appear to suppress such results
They argue that such a search algorithm is unethical, as it influences elections in favor of certain candidates. Google on the other hand claims that such complaints are unfounded, and instead indicate a lack of understanding about how search engines actually work. Google claims that their search engine suppresses negative searches for all people.
Furthermore, they have actually mentioned topics that we have covered in class. While hubs and authorities were never specifically mentioned, Google did indicate that their search engine reflects biases that already exist in society. In essence, they weight certain results more heavily based on the amount of interest a link has generated and the quality of the site.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/10/google-says-search-isnt-biased-toward-hillary-clinton/85725014/