Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism

In Algorithms of Oppression : How Search Engines Reinforce Racism Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.

Dr. Safiya U. Noble is an assistant professor at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School of Communication. Noble’s academic research focuses on the design of digital media platforms on the internet and their impact on society. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a B.A. in Sociology from California State University, Fresno with an emphasis on African American/Ethnic Studies.

See more about this event in out blogpost here.

This event is sponsored by

• Princeton University Library
• Humanities Council
• Center for Collaborative History
• Department of African American Studies
• University Center for Human Values
• Center for Information and Technology Policy
• Department of Computer Science
• Center for Statistics and Machine Learning
• The Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities at Princeton (IHUM)
• Department of Sociology
• Department of Politics
• Department of Anthropology
• Department of Mathematics
• Woodrow Wilson School