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< | The Search Engine: A Digital Omniscient or A Gluttonous Monster |
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> | Taking Actions, or Your Search Engine Might Grow into A Gluttonous Monster |
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< | -- By YingLiu - 09 Oct 2020 |
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> | -- By YingLiu |
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Introduction: Louder, Please |
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< | Leveraging its ability of connecting-the-dots, search engines enable humankind to access the boundless information pool at an unprecedented speed. We all tend to be tamed by the convenience and benefits offered by tools and then turned a blind eye to the dangers and risks they may bring. Here is the case as well. |
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> | Speaking of invading privacy and deteriorating human thinking, search engines could be more horrifying than social networks. dominant players in the search market have been pushing the envelope on user privacy for years and have tied together our dependency on their search engines with their surveillance economy. And despite these practices becoming normalized, many are still unaware of the risks and concerns imposed by search engines. |
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< | Of course, there are some pioneers shouted out once, but the sounds were merely a whisper as compared to the explosive discussion on Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Attention is needed here. Speaking of invading privacy and deteriorating human thinking, search engines could be more horrifying than social networks. |
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< | By selectively uploading and sharing information, photos and videos with followers, people are able to create an online persona for themselves on Facebook or Instagram, which may deviate from their real identities and characters in some respects. Nevertheless, such camouflage becomes folderol when turning to Google or Bing. People are more honest and transparent with search engines. With the misconception that there is no audience behind the search box, they relievedly google everything they are interested in or curious about. The search engine, however, always gives an ear to searchers, archives the search history, and secretively directs human thinking by returning selected search hits on the first page. |
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> | It’s time to shout out louder to urge netizens be wary of their search box and decentralize their daily searches. |
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< | Confess Your Sins to God, Confess Your Past to Google |
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> | Concern I: The Search Privacy and Data Collection |
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< | While search engine crawlers work 24/7 to index websites and gather information to suit user’s potential needs, such spiderbots also pry on your digital footprint and make it indexed. Your new friend may not be able to read a blog you posted ten years ago, but the search engine can locate it if the robots.txt file of the blog site offers permission. |
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> | Upon the revelation of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook and social network platforms become the main target of criticism on data collection. Unfortunately, privacy and data collection concerns imposed by search engines have not received the same level of attention. A survey conducted in 2019 showed that over 30% of searchers are still unaware of how much data collection is going on and for what purpose. |
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< | We all have shameful memories that we want to erase, so does Mario Costeja. He sued Google due to the fact that a Google search of his name pulled up previous legal notices. In 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in favor of him, stating that EU citizens have a “Right To Be Forgotten” and could request that search engines remove links to pages deemed private. |
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< | Someone questioned the rationale behind this newly-created human right. Mr. Costeja could not enforce the local newspaper to remove an article published in 1998 referring same matter, why should Google be forced to take it down? Enrique Dans bluntly denounced that the "Right to Be Forgotten" is human stupidity created by incompetent people who never comprehended how the internet works. He is right that not every netizen understood the hypertext system of the World Wide Web, however, Mr. Dans ignores that it is exactly “how internet works” makes things different here: while costly efforts would be needed to dig out a late 1990s newspaper, search engines enable the public to access this historical information by one-second keyword search. |
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> | In fact, search engines are more horrifying than the social network. Users can easily create a semifictional persona on Facebook while they neither hide nor fabricate anything when typing in the search box. With the misconception that there is no audience behind the search box, they relievedly are honest with Google and search for everything they are interested in or curious about. |
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< | Five years later, the EU Court nonetheless took a step back. It limited the “Right to Be Forgotten” only applicable within Europe, aiming at striking a balance between personal privacy and the public's freedom of information. But how could such geographic limitation help to achieve the so-called balance? Does it mean that one has to move to Europe if he would like to be forgotten by Google? Will this differentiated treatment create inequality between EU citizens and non-EU citizens? |
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< | External Human Brains, The Answer Bible and Encyclopedists |
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> | Throughout almost every point of a user’s journey, search engines are instinctively and accurately tracking behavior and preferences and over a period of time an online user profile is developed. AOL once published users’ search log and the New York Times successfully connected user No. 4417749 with a 62-year-old lady. As the lady put it, these search records exposed her “whole life”. |
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< | The woodblock printing once changed the way people communicate and learn, and now it is the search engine’s turn. A psychological research demonstrates that search engines have become an external memory system that is primed by the need to acquire information. Faced with search engines’ thorough invasion into human beings’ cognitive process, it is particularly important to ensure that search results are comprehensive, unbiased, authoritative, and accurate. The search results shown on the first page will to some extent determine or distort the searchers’ understanding of the subject issue. |
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< | Before the advent of the Internet, schools were the prevailing knowledge hub and textbooks were the mainstream source of know-how. With credible editorial and standardized publication review procedures, the accuracy and credibility of textbooks were secured in most cases. In the era of search engines, who shall undertake such filter, weigh and judge responsibilities? To put it more straightforward, who has the authority to make search results ranking decisions? |
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> | Google claimed that it collected user data to improve its understanding of queries. This might be true. But another truth is that Google is selling user search data to make profits. In 2019, over 72% of Google’s advertising revenues were from google search. Google, as well as many other mainstream search engines, are harvesting user data on a tremendous scale to gain a share in the surveillance economy.
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< | The realistic answer is the algorithm. But all algorithms involve human intervention thus they are never purely scientific or absolutely neutral. The algorithms reflect the value orientation of both engineers and the profit-seeking tech companies they serve. No doubt that the algorithm of a search engine provider with a bid ranking business will definitely prioritize the paying advertisers’ websites. This is a lesson that we learned from Mr. Zexi Wei’s death. Mr. Wei, a young college student, lost his life after receiving dubious cancer treatment from a hospital advertised on a Chinese search engine with misleading medical information. |
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> | Concern II: The Quality of Search Results and Its Impact on Human Thinking |
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< | Since self-discipline sounds hard to achieve, people may turn to count on regulators. Unfortunately, with regard to certain countries, bringing Big Brothers into this discussion may be counterproductive. In 2018, in an attempt to return to the Chinese market, Google launched Project Dragonfly, a castrated search engine designed to compromise with CCP’s censorship requirements. The fierce criticism of Project Dragonfly from engineers and human rights activists proves that government may not be a desirable candidate who can be of help. Once freedom is deprived and search engines become a propaganda machine, it is meaningless to talk about credibility. |
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> | Some netizens were socialized to accept that they have to hand over personal data to exchange for free, convenient, and so-called personalized searching services. But they undermined the negative impacts of such compromise. When acquiescing in the search engine’s data collection, you are not merely handing in your search queries to it and third-party advertisers, but also sacrificing your search quality.
People search for restaurants, dramas, company information and any unfamiliar concept online. When I was told that someone had made efforts to find a better alternative to replace this “regrettable necessity,” such new information is like Pavlov’s bell, I unavoidably and subconsciously resorted to search engines to check it out. The Generation Z rely on and trust in search engines as much as their grandfathers trusted textbooks and teachers. The search engine is not simply an ads displayer but a participant in the user’s cognitive process — search results on the first page will to some extent determine or distort the searchers’ understanding of the subject issue.
One needs to receive professional training and evaluation to qualify as a teacher, and textbooks have credible editorial and standardized publication review procedures to ensure the accuracy of the contents. However, the search ranking decisions are made by algorithms, which failed to undertake the filter, weigh and judge responsibilities to ensure the top-ranking results are unbiased, accurate and authoritative.
All algorithms involve human intervention thus they are never purely scientific or absolutely neutral. The algorithms reflect the value orientation of both engineers and the profit-seeking tech companies they serve. It may be based on the user's browsing history, competitive ranking mechanism and other random factors. When you Google for "the best restaurant nearby," the first hit might not be the one with the highest Yelp score, but the one which paid Google for advertising, or the one you had once visited its website using Chrome.
The Wei Zexi incident is a typical and extreme example of how the results provided by search engines may affect people's cognition and follow-up behavior. Mr. Wei, a young college student, lost his life after receiving dubious cancer treatment from a hospital advertised on a Chinese search engine with misleading medical information. Mr. Wei was killed by his search behavior and the commercially-driven search results.
When search engines become the prevailing knowledge hub while the accuracy of search results cannot be guaranteed, it’s time for all searchers to take a pause and think about how to ensure they can get correct answers from their search engines. |
| | Is There A Way Out? |
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< | Quitting social networks is difficult for Generation Z as they are growing up in an environment where Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? constantly give them a dopamine hit. It is even more challenging, and arguably, not a wise move, to discard search engines. When I was told that someone had made efforts to find a better alternative to replace this “regrettable necessity,” such new information is like Pavlov’s bell, I unavoidably and subconsciously resorted to search engines to check it out. |
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> | An undeniable fact is that search engines enable humankind to access the boundless information pool at an unprecedented speed. If quitting search engines is not a wise move, can searchers take initiatives to protect search privacy and optimize search quality?
The answer is positive.
The most direct and simple solution is to switch to a privacy-friendly search engine. Some pioneers have begun to develop google search’s alternative: US-based Duckduckgo and UK-based Oscobo offer search engine that does not track or store users’ data.
But doubts still exist regarding search quality. Under the current search engine landscape, a better solution might be decentralizing your searches.
Using a universal search engine like Google does provide convenience to some extent, but it also greatly expands the risk of privacy invasion and results manipulation. Dispersing search queries on various vertical search engines is a good way to avoid revealing your full user profile to one tech company. Moreover, vertical search engines can return more precise and calibrated results due to narrowed scope and vertical expertise. |
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Many different good ideas are here. They are each attractively packaged and voiced with humor and vigor, but they're not coherent. The best route to improvement is to distill out your central new idea, state it clearly in the first paragraph, use subsequent paragraphs to show how you came by it and how you would respond to the most important foreseeable objections. That should entitle you to a stronger conclusion that the present draft can muster. It should also empower you to offer new implications in that conclusion, which the reader can take away and enlarge on her own. |
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> | Coming out of the comfort zone by abandoning a tool we are used to is never a pleasure, but if doing so can relieve the worries on who’s watching over us every time we search, wondering what the repercussions are and how our own data will be used to manipulate our own thinking, it is worthwhile to make the change. |
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< | On the present substance, the most important unexamined assumption is that search engines' power cannot be substantially diluted by the individual user save by declining to search. This is not true. It might be useful to consider the question from that angle. If one wishes to confine the power of the search box, what steps should one take? How effective can they be made? If people use them, what happens next? Etc.
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