#algorithms of oppression

[indigenousandnativewaysofbeing]

Image: Wangechi Mutu, 'You are my sunshine,' collage painting on paper, 24 x 36", 2015.

“Marginalized and oppressed people are linked to the status of their group and are less likely to be afforded individual status and insulation from the experiences of the groups with which they are identified. The political nature of [search engines] demonstrates how algorithms are a fundamental invention of computer scientists who are human beings–and code is a language full of meaning and applied in varying ways to different types of information” -Safiya Umoja Noble, "Algorithms of Oppression"

Before reading Safiya Umoja Noble’s “Algorithms of Oppression,” I was among the many that truly believed Google was a neutral public resource. Maybe you’ve heard the saying “library at your fingertips.”

However, despite popular belief, its algorithms serve paid advertising which happens to sport search results as a product of “most relevant and useful information” (Noble 37). Algorithms involve the process of “rendering,” a procedure that Noble calls “expressly social, economic, and human,” implemented through a series of steps called “algorithms” (37). The common misconception that Search is a mirror to human beliefs is combatted by Noble’s notion that “current algorithmic constraints [do] not provide appropriate social, historical, and contextual meaning to already overracialized and hypersexualized people who materially suffer along multiple axes” (36).

This means that for the white programmers who are uncomfortable talking about race, accurate depictions of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color escape the clutches of our everyday algorithms.

Furthermore, search engine optimization or SEO represents pushing ads or websites to the “top of a results list for a query,” providing profit to various companies or Google based on website clicks (Noble 40). Because Google is what Noble calls a “multinational advertising company,” it can prioritize search results for, say, “Black women” under a multitude of porn hyperlinks over the “eleven and a half billion documents that could have been indexed” (49).

Even someone such as Noble, who defines herself from the Black feminist perspective, a pedagogy that analyzes the intersection between racism, sexism, and so on, would find that search results do not always directly reflect her interests.

One quote that I would like to include, and that pulls away the smoke screen of “naturalized” algorithms, comes early on in the chapter, “Marginalized and oppressed people are linked to the status of their group and are less likely to be afforded individual status and insulation from the experiences of the groups with which they are identified. The political nature of [search engines] demonstrates how algorithms are a fundamental invention of computer scientists who are human beings–and code is a language full of meaning and applied in varying ways to different types of information” (Noble 26).

Edited: 5/2/2023

[skannar]

I love good Audiobooks on new tech.

[august-chun]

“It would take more than a year for a federal judge to conclude the insurer’s decision was “at best, speculative” and that Walter was owed thousands of dollars for more than three weeks of treatment. While she fought the denial, she had to spend down her life savings and enroll in Medicaid just to progress to the point of putting on her shoes, her arm still in a sling.“

[biglisbonnews]

Coded Bias and the Algorithm Justice League Algorithms reflect bias: that of the programmers and the data sets, a new kind of virus infecting machine learning. Machine learning can, through algorithmic oppression, replicate social prejudices and structures of inequality. These are conclusions that creative researchers have emphasized when studying algorithms and social life. — Read the rest https://boingboing.net/2023/02/16/coded-bias-and-the-algorithm-justice-league.html

[fireflysongbirdperson]

Take action and stand in solidarity with Palestinian people

[gachapains]

I'm taking the TikTok ban extremely well

Me aggressively asking my UK oomfie to doomscroll for me when we call tomorrow

[topaztimes]

Hi this is a vent post! Continue scrolling if you'd rather not see that

[atelierlili]

tumblr needs to stop sending me G!le defence posts, i stg, I write at least one hate-filled love letter to that boy every month.

[nightvale-thoughts]

thinking about the controversy around mag 185 again because (?) it was so weird. setting aside the fact that mag 185 wasn’t even that revolutionary in its critique against police brutality, it’s still crazy why people who believed it would be got upset.

i know that a lot of people were angry w/ the idea of real world systematic trauma being used as material for the show, but um… uh. that’s the point that’s the point that’s literally the whole point. in s5 everyone’s deepest fears and traumas have been made manifest in the most literal ways and. ? obviously that includes real world fears and not-cartoony, easy to digest ones too,,

it’s also odd to me that this ep was controversial, considering the fact that we’d previously had episodes focusing on topics like eating disorders and addiction before. by that point in the show, it’s assumed that the audience would be comfortable with mag 185 because (imo) we had handled much darker and visceral depictions of real world trauma prior. so ? did ppl online suddenly get scared that jonny wouldn’t handle a topic like that with sensitivity?? after 185 episodes ???

i guess the follow up argument to this would be whether jonny had any right to include these kinds of things in the show which.. um. he did actually sorry :P

colourblind character casting and writing doesn’t do as much to critique the actual systemic issues that kept minorities away from the spotlight for so long. everyone cheers for writers when they do the bare minimum of having good representation in their work, but then get angry when writers use their platform to critique real world systematic issues ☹️

like u know they’re supposed to do that right,, that’s the whole reason why people believe independent media has the potential to be world changing. writers can actually talk about these issues without having to deal with networks censoring them. why wouldn’t he be allowed to do that :/

[abigailspinach]

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From the comments

So was her argument really just, "I tried to do research, but the evidence doesn't seem to back up my beliefs, so I'm going to rely on common sense, which is actually just reiterating what I already believe."

More projection from her than a cinema.

So when all your research points to the opposite of the point you’re trying to prove it doesn’t mean that it’s biased it could possibly just maybe mean YOU ARE WRONG

I love when conservatives are like "it's so hard to find data that supports our views!!!" Um honey... that's when you're supposed to change your views...

Why is it that the algorithms pushes conservative content? I've been far left my entire life, yet every time I've logged on for the past eight years I've been flooded with Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan content! What's going on??

[infiniteelsinore]

Who fucking narced on the robotgirl dicksucking pic. God damn it.

[indigenousandnativewaysofbeing]

Synthesis Report

Technology, simply defined, is information with a goal and a way to be reproduced. Writing is technology. So are telephone polls, hammers, knives, and AI. Technology has often been cited as the driving force of the United States empire. And for Western ways of living, technology has been seen as a gift to foreign regions. For the purposes of this essay, I will connect concepts of racism that have led to what we consider today as objective technology– that is, tech that is unbiased and bears science-backed ideas of truth. And thus, we will discover how the intersection of tribal sovereignty, (un)naturalized algorithms, and colorblind ideology all help us understand how technology has historically been used as a tool to boost colonial motives. Let’s first look at tribal sovereignty, what it means, and how it works in our modern world.

Tribal sovereignty, as defined by Marisa Elena Duarte, is the right for Indigenous and Native tribes to self-govern. But because white leaders have a penchant for manifest destiny, the Indigenous peoples of what is now known as “America” are forced into difficult situations like losing land and access to the internet. To understand how to move forward, Duarte asks us in her book “Network Sovereignty” to look at Indigenous spiritual practices and appreciation of the land in contrast to how colonial technology is developed under racist guidelines. She lists these considerations for the digital generation: colonial technologies have historically been weaponized against Native and Indigenous peoples, digital technology can support Native youth, and awareness of digital technology’s ability to limit traditional Native notions of grace and peace.

On that note, the “Natives in Tech” conference, which was held in 2020, has provided that there are big movements created by Indigenous and Native tribes to cut out third-party vendors and big tech companies and is moving forward with creating a network of Native software engineers. These software engineers move within the parameters of the sacred land connection integral to Indigenous ways of living. These movements teach us that it is possible to create systems of technology that fully encapsulate non-white and non-western existences and that doing so actually makes the spread of information found in the complexities of globalization.

Ever since the birth of search engines and the internet at large, we've been told that algorithms tell us more about ourselves than they do about the people who make them. What our screens show us is a product of what we’ve searched previously and what we’ve clicked on the most. The reality is algorithms are not naturalized. Algorithms are, actually, highly simplified systems based on the coder’s bias. Safiya Umoja Noble, author of “Algorithms of Oppression,” contends they currently “[do] not provide appropriate social, historical, and contextual meaning to already overracialized and hypersexualized people who materially suffer along multiple axes” (36). A big hint for why this is such an issue comes from the lack of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color employed in Silicon Valley. In “Silicon Valley Pretends That Algorithmic Bias Is Accidental,” Amber Hamilton discusses the tech culture, which has a history of racist and sexist hiring discrimination.

What’s more, Hamilton continues, is that tech companies, like Google, have a habit of dissuading employees from holding political discussions in the workplace. Yet again, we see an example of how easy it is for white tech to reflect white interests. We return, again, to the overarching idea that white tech seeks white power. Even if these instances seem unintentional, they tell us a story. The colorblind ideology that ensues, as Ruha Benjamin says in “Race After Technology,” “are sold as morally superior because they purport to rise above human bias” (38). It is almost impossible to challenge tech as we are brought to believe it's an entity all of its own, totally void of its creator's morality. MIT's data scientists work hard to construct robots without gender, class, or race. While the robots indeed were “servants” and “workers,” MIT scientists referred to them as “friends and children, addressing them in “class-avoidant” terms (Benjamin 42). Programmers felt so uncomfortable inputting the varying histories of racism, transphobia, and misogyny that they just let them out altogether. Unfortunately, acting as if these things didn’t exist doesn’t make technology better. It only makes it worse. So how do tribal sovereignty, naturalized algorithms, and colorblind ideology all tie together?

Colonial tech is so focused on reaching the biggest audience it can that there really is no space for them to care about the repercussions of their product. And if they are legitimately concerned, it's generally in favor of discriminating against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Decolonizing tech looks like creating tech according to accurate histories and with values that empower people. It doesn’t look like plowing through sacred land. It doesn’t look like perpetuating racism or claiming racism doesn’t exist. Tech has the power to be something more. Tech has the power to create better lives not just for white people but for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

[statboyz]

i think the point is that it is especially fucked up for the family and friends of this 18 year old who was killed to watch videos of her face being puppeted around, which i guess isn't unique to AI but is made much more accessible by it, as we have seen with famous women literally being edited into nudity.

ai is not going to leave the uncanny valley if it continues to walk on the dead and make "perfection" from nothing :/ wish her loved ones peace and healing

[gingerswagfreckles]

Yeah I give up. I know this is a big joke to everyone but handing over your sensitive information to a foreign hostile government that dissappears thousands of their own citizens a year is not the big haha epic leftist win you think it is. I keep thinking I'm incapable of being shocked anymore and then this unbelievably brain dead generation proves me wrong over and over again. The Chinese government is not your friend and this shit about how "haha they can steal all the data they want if they keep showing me these gay mommy milkers" is just unbelievable holy shit how stupid are you people?? The CCP executed over 3k people in 2024 according to Amnesty international. They are currently occupying Hong Kong, unlitaterally ended the legality of a functional democracy there, and have arrested hundred of activists in the past year alone. They have been threatening to invade Taiwan and impose the same authoritarianism there for years, and have been occupying Tibet since the fucking 1950s. The CCP is currently committing a GENOCIDE against the Uyghur Muslim minority, something I KNOW you guys have heard about, but I guess that doesn't matter anymore since getting Le Epic Win meme moments against the US government by sharing your data with those committing the genocide is more important??

Holy shit. Holy shit! Are you people actually out of your goddamn minds? How can any of you call yourself leftist progressive anti imperial prison abolitionist advocates blah blah blah are you effing kidding me? The left has permanently turned a corner that I seriously don't think we can come back from. Actually advocating for human rights has been completely abandoned in favor of stanning actual literal totalitarian dictatorships to look cool and radical online, regardless of any reality on the ground. You are all literally enthusiastically throwing away decades upon decades of advocacy done by REAL human rights advocates, for a fucking meme. I am not even kidding anymore I am virulently disgusted by most of the people on this fucking backwards pro fascist website. You people are not communist intellectuals you are brain dead algorithm addicted ignorant children who are so overly confident and proud about your ignorance that you are actively bringing about worse and worse realities for people who ACTUALLY have to live under the oppression you so desperately want to pretend that you face.

[formulatrash]

sorry to like, keep going on about this but as a (former?) media professional: seeing so many comments on @wearewatcher's video saying "I would fire people so I didn't have to charge for content" and accusing WATCHER of being capitalist about it is actually insane.

you used to have to pay for content. you had to pay like £16 to watch one whole movie on DVD. this is because it cost money to make and people were supposed to be paid for it. remember the writers' strike because streaming now only benefits executives with no equanimous income distribution model for the people who create the stuff you love?

you are meant to root for the independent creators. you are not meant to want all content to be beholden to an algorithmic nightmare that ransoms what creators can make or monetise for its own arbitrary censorship. you are not meant to root for a platform that works to silence and limit people under oppressive regimes. you are not meant to demand that you get content only on something that platforms and promotes right wing prejudice.

employing people is good!!!!!!! you are meant to want people to be fairly paid for their work even and especially when that work goes into creating things you love and get enrichment from

yes you are also meant to share your subscription with your friends. OUR login details. THAT'S fucking socialism.

[ellaandtheocean]

Become a marine biologist. Take meaningful steps to disrupt oppressive capitalist systems. Look at a picture of a baleen whale. Listen to music you enjoy. Create a spotify playlist that is so unhinged that it breaks the algorithm. Disregard the need to have everything nice and shiny and aesthetically pleasing; growth is chaotic and messy, allow it to be so. Read about crabs. Be compassionate to your body even though it’s hard some days. Develop pharyngeal jaws and use them to devour those who restrict the rights of marginalized people. Try not to compare yourself to other people. Abandon gender roles and instead construct a belief system based around baleen whales because they’re just the best. Maybe have a little read before bed.