WEEK 1: Digital Technology is not Neutral

November 24, 2021 / 2 Comments

When joining the Create Caribbean group I learned a lot of new things in week 1. This includes what is digital humanities, what they do and the different rights we students have when doing digital humanities. All of this is all and well but the thing that shocked me the most in one of the readings in week 1 was how the internet was not neutral and was based on a white's ideologies.

When reading through "Ideologies of Boring Things: The Internet and Infrastructures of Race" I truly got to know how racist the internet can be. This article is a summary of a book called "Algorithms of Oppression" by SAFIYA UMOJA NOBLE. According to the article the book talks about this woman named Safiya Umoja Noble experience with the internet. It says how in 2010 Noble saw with her own eyes that Black girls and black people, in general, were looked down upon. This was evident in the search results when Noble searched on Google "gorilla" turned up photos of African-American people and "professional hairstyles" showed photos of white women wearing ponytails, while "unprofessional hairstyles" featured black women. This showed Noble that this was how Google built its algorithm.

The article goes on to say that Noble offers two solutions. One of which is to build Google's algorithm with different people who understand race and gender and other categories of a different life or else nothing will change. The second solution is an appeal to the state in service to the public good.

Noble makes a very good point in saying that there need to be more people who know the importance of equality in race and gender and does not discriminate between white and black.

Going to the search results earlier I did not encounter such things when I searched such things on the internet today, but some signs of racism can still be seen to this day on the internet when it is looked for. This has become a very big issue where there have been several people trying to stop racism not just on the internet but also in the world. One of these cases was the Black Lives Matter movement that happened in 2013. It was a small movement at first but over time it gained supporters and now it is the largest movement in the US with 26 million who have participated.

This shows us that there are people who are willing to stop racism and even take up Noble's ideas.