I hate to say it but over the last few years I’ve become more focused on who is making money when certain decisions are made and how that influx of cash might cause people and companies to behave in different way to protect that income. In short – I’m seeing a lot of people and companies choose monetary gain over what they may know and advocate for as “good things”.

In her book “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism” Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble addresses this topic head-on in the introduction and first chapter by pointing out that the racist and sexist results in our search engines “…reflects a corporate logic of either willful neglect or a profit imperative that makes money from racism and sexism” (p. 5). Neither is a positive view. Safiya argues corporations are either willfully neglecting the racist and sexist tendencies of the algorithms they created and make money from, or they are intentionally making money off of proliferating racist and sexist search results. Either way – they know what is happening and they are complicit.

Safiya goes on to point out that “…[she keeps her] eye on complicating the notion that information assumed to be ‘fact’ (by virtue of its legitimation at the top of the information pile) exists because racism and sexism are profitable under our system of racialized capitalism” (p. 32). I had never heard the term before and it’s one I’d like to dig into more deeply. If you have resources you’d like to share about this – please send them my way.

Safiya’s attention to how private companies are marketing themselves as a “…public resource even though it is a multinational advertising company” (p. 50) is a reminder that both profit and public good cannot co-exist equally as motivating factors for the strategic decisions of that company. Perhaps what was most scary for me was her explanation of the impact this has on our ability to critique these systems.

“What this critique shows is that the privatization and commercial nature of information has become so normalized that it not only becomes obscured from view but, as a result, is increasingly difficult to critique within the public domain” (p. 51).

I have to admit, by the end of chapter one I was already starting to feel nauseous about how big this problem is. However, Safiya’s intelligence, focus, and tone in her description of these issues and the work she has done to research them, reminds me to have hope because there are people like her in the world doing this work. I look forward to reading more of what she has to say, and working hard to amplify her voice.