medium.com > Arnold Brown
Blackbird in the Coal Mine — Are Technology Platforms Stifling Black Community? — Part 2
17 oct. 2018 - In Part 1, I wrote about the technology conditions that led to a group of entrepreneurs creating Blackbird, a custom browser and web search to showcase African American content. While many applauded Blackbird’s efforts to contribute to an emerging Black content community online, others saw Blackbird much more negatively. For some, the fact that a product showcased Black content meant it excluded people from other racial or ethnic groups, or that it promoted a form of self-segregation. For many, they simply did not see a “problem” with the mainstream’s approach to search or showcasing content, and because Blacks were not marginalized to begin with creating a vehicle to address marginalization made no sense. After all, the Internet was supposed to be colorblind.
 · advertising · black-struggle · blackbird · culture · search-engines · social-media

medium.com > Arnold Brown
Blackbird in the Coal Mine — Are Technology Platforms Stifling Black Community? — Part 1
12 oct. 2018 - On August 30, 2018 the New York Times ran a piece by Farhad Manjoo entitled, “Here’s the Conversation We Really Need to Have About Bias at Google” which explained why Trump’s unsupported claims about search engine bias against conservative voices potentially undermines the conversation various communities and experts have been trying to have for a very long time about the hidden, pervasive and often unintended bias of the search engine results. The 60 Minutes piece “How Did Google Get So Big?” which aired on September 23, 2018, includes discussion of the harmful impacts of the bias of search engines. Even while Google and others strive to modify their algorithms to produce results that are free from the hidden or unintended bias and also more capable of producing results individually relevant, I would suggest there is still the need to create communities of content in ways that don’t silo us as people, but provide an additive overlay.
 · algorithmic-bias · black-struggle · blackbird · brazil · content-discovery · culture · google · search-engines · technology