Google and Social Good
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspiring-isis-recruits/
As Google’s PageRank algorithm serves the utilitarian purpose we all know it for, we never think of it as being used purposefully for social good, but the above article from Wired discusses Google’s plans to do just that. Google’s plan involves placing links to anti-ISIS advertisements alongside results for keywords/phrases that Google has determined people attracted to ISIS commonly search for. With this, we have to wonder if Google has some sort of obligation for social good.
Should Google place ads for PSA’s discussing childhood diabetes alongside pages featuring sugary children’s cereals? Being the mega corporation it is, at some point the public expects it to do more than just help people search, especially considering the ridiculous amount of information they have on the entire population. Obviously, Google’s used this information in sneakier ways as shown in the NSA Leak a few years back, but should they be using the information they develop about networks for good? Should they decrease the rank of pages considered harmful, or increase the rank of those considered good for the public well-being. These are a lot of the ethical questions that get raised with the sort of information that Google deals in.