Thursday, August 23, 2007

Society's impact on the Internet

The other night we discussed how internet is changing how society gets its news and interprets events. In fact, most discussions in today's communication classes focus on how online media is reshaping the industry. That's why when I heard about Google being accused of being sexist, I had to check it out. This story surfaced a couple of months ago, so it may be old news to some of you. However, I hadn't read Google's official response. Basically, the story goes that if you type "she invents" into Google's search engine, Google suggests "he invents" as an alternative. On the other hand, if you type in "she cooks" it does not suggest a male alternative. According to Google, the suggestions are based on "spell-checking algorithms which use cues from from user input" (Nick Denton, Valleywag.com). As Denton so appropriately states in his online post, "It's the world that's sexist; we just index it."

Information collected from an online post by Nick Denton, "Google's Sexism" posted May 15, 2007 on www.valleywag.com

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