Google Is Perpetuating Racist Stereotypes About Oakland In Its Search Pages
ONN – Google Is Perpetuating Racist Stereotypes About Oakland In Its Search Pages – vlog by Zennie62 YouTube
If I happen to type Oakland News Now on Google, a list of questions on the first page of results ask questions that are racist:
Is Oakland predominantly black?
Is Oakland safe now?
What percentage of Oakland California is black?
Is Oakland safer than San Francisco
And if I type is plain Oakland, I get
Is Oakland a dangerous city?
Is it safe to go to Oakland?
What is Oakland known for?
How bad is crime in Oakland?
On the whole, I have to ask who is asking these questions? Is Google representing what from my experience has been the view of a healthy number of white folks who live in San Francisco?
UPDATE: I put this post on Facebook, and here are some of the many take, all critical of Google, that were posted:
JF: This is blatantly racist.
JH: This doesn’t surprise me at all. Friends on the other side of the hills have been asking me when I’m going to move out since we moved in.
Like, never? I’m thinking never.SWT: All algorithms are racist. I’m reading a fascinating (and infuriating) book about this right now – Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble.
My response: Well. I develop algorithms for our reputation management work. It depends on the situation and the application. We go to work against online racist attacks on our clients.
What I hold is that Google needs to root out racist engineers who would design such AI systems.
But I will get that book. I am dying to read it. Thanks.BC: Google is really going through it right now.
Still time to do better.DC: Tell them Oakland is VERY dangerous, so the gentrification will slow down. I’ve been telling folks to do that since I moved here in 1983.
TC: I live in the Hoover Foster neighborhood. I’ve lived in West Oakland, deep East Oakland, and Lake Merritt. After living here over 20 years, I still maintain it’s the most impressive city in the U.S. It’s no more dangerous than any big city in the U.S. I’ve experienced more shady stuff in SF than here. White people are generally scared of Black people everywhere in this country. That’s what the Google algorithm represents. It prevents people from appreciating the truly warm, authentic, creative, and kind ambience that Oakland has BECAUSE OF THE BLACK PRESENCE, not in spite of it.
Google just shows us what prejudices people already have. It’s a mirror. We need to work on Search Engine Optimization for websites w good, true, accurate info. Understand tech and you get to help shape it. I’m not pro-Google. I just think we should master tech and steer the ship ?
LR: Will only attract gentry who like “edgy”. And then you’ll get worse combo of gentrification plus acceptance of high crime
JR: This theme about Oakland has been here since I came during 1969. I kept wondering why my neighbors were so nice and the reputation was so bad. I’m glad questions like these are being challenged.
Whatever the reason – I don’t care – this must stop.
Google should not be developing cyber institutional racism but that is what it is doing.
Stop.
Stay tuned.
Note from Zennie62Media’s Zennie62 YouTube and Oakland News Now Today Blog SF Bay Area: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.