her search nor Roof's included links to FBI statistics showing that the overwhelming majority of crime against white people is committed by white people. We need our search engines to help challenge the assumptions of people like Roof with facts, not feed their hate.
very dangerous way CB fueled someone's prejudice and misconceptions
"Algorithms of Oppression" discusses a number of other disturbing examples where search results seem optimized to spread prejudice rather than accurate information.
"Accurate information"--very helpful to include for opposition (although I tried looking up these things and non racist/sexist things came up for me)
engine optimization products."
It all goes back to these search engines being first and foremost businesses trying to make money from ads
Google isn't necessarily focused on giving users the most trustworthy or balanced information, Noble argues. She points out that Google makes the vast majority of its income from ads — more than 85% of its income in fact.
Very good quote and point to make for counter claim
more importantly, Google is an advertising platform and its customers or advertisers are looking to optimize their content, products, and services
So we're all just sort of helpless to what the search engines want us to see
Noble points out that search engines are not magically impartial arbiters. Search algorithms are created by people and reflect, not just the racist and sexist biases of users, but the racist and sexist biases of their designers.
So it's not even just the users that are the problem--the creators have 'rigged' the system for us
By Noah Berlatsky
This article is going to be for my counter argument, that we all can't help but have confirmation bias as it's literally ingrained in search engines
Hospitals are inflating COVID-19 death numbers to get more money.
This is kind of getting into conspiracy theories territory, but it advances through confirmation bias and by only accepting false info that strengthened their beliefs these people eventually became subject to this conspiracy theory
When the USA TODAY Editorial Board met recently with infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, he was fed up with those who don't take the virus seriously. "This is real," he said."And if the divisiveness is so severe that people don't think it's real when people are flooding hospitals and dying at a rate that we haven't seen with a disease of this type in 102 years, I hope that's enough of a stimulus for us to drop back as a nation and say, 'Hey, folks, we've got to start talking to each other about what this divide is between us.'"
Another way CB negatively affects society, especially shown with COVID
“I want to strangle people who say that (COVID-19 numbers are exaggerated) because we’re fighting this battle every day,” Narasimhan said.
How CB makes it hard for people doing the research and experiencing something
The maddening commonality of this group: They base their beliefs on false information, social media rumors or the fact that they don't personally know anyone who has had COVID-19, so it can't be that bad.
How CB is dangerous-people don't care about all the numbers reported about or stories on social media, they only care that they personally don't know someone or they personally haven't been affected. They choose to only listen to what supports their argument
Confirmation bias occurs when people tend to look for information that confirms their beliefs/hypotheses, but this bias can be reduced by taking into alternative hypotheses and their consequences.
Another good possible solution I could include
To avoid being susceptible
This section will be good for my solution paragraph
Recruitment and Selection
Both politics and this section (which is mainly about hiring) show real life examples of why confirmation bias is harmful to not only individuals but society as well. It's an interesting point that CB plays into discrimination/stereotyping, which is definitely an issue.
This bias prevents people from gathering information objectively.
Good quote that shows why confirmation bias is a problem
Cognitive dissonance is a mental conflict that occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefsand causes psychological stress/unease in a person.
Another reason, which I think I've never considered before and is very interesting. This could be cool to include at some point when explaining confirmation bias
Protect Self-esteem
I can also just quickly list these reasons, explaining why confirmation bias happens
To form an unbiased decision, one would have to critically evaluate every piece of information present, which is unfeasible. Therefore, people only tend to look for information desired to form their conclusions (Casad, 2019).
This explains why we fall into the trap of confirmation bias, since it's he easier route to take to just confirm what you already believe
being an efficient way to process information, protect self-esteem, and minimize cognitive dissonance.
Good thing to include in background information, when I'm further explaining what confirmation bias is
To form conclusions, people tend to read the news that aligns with their perspectives. For instance, new channels provide information (even the same news) differently from each other on complex issues (i.e., racism, political parties, etc.), with some using sensational headlines/pictures and one-sided information.
Great quote (or paraphrase possibly) to include when I talk about biased news playing into confirmation bias
Some theories state that information confirming prior beliefs is stored in the memory while contradictory evidence is not (i.e., Schema theory). Some others claim that striking information is remembered best (i.e., humor effect).
these are two interesting scientific theories Nichols doesn't touch on but that could be helpful to include--I don't know if I want to dip into biased memory, but this could just be a quick thing to include
Biased interpretation is shown in an experiment conducted by Stanford University on the topic of capital punishment. It included participants who were in support of and others who were against capital punishment. All subjects were provided with the same two studies. After reading the detailed descriptions of the studies, participants still held their initial beliefs and supported their reasoning by providing “confirming” evidence from the studies and rejecting any contradictory evidence or considering it inferior to the “confirming” evidence (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979).
I could possibly end up summarizing this for more scientific evidence if needed-to give a tangible example
Additionally, people accept “confirming” evidence more easily and critically evaluate the “disconfirming” evidence (this is known as disconfirmation bias) (Taber & Lodge, 2006).
This is another good piece f evidence to use for my support, better explaining how confirmation bias actually plays out, especially how it devalues research and data
Various experiments have shown that people tend not to change their beliefs on complex issues even after being provided with research because of the way they interpret the evidence.
Good quote to use in first paragraph, on why confirmation bias is dangerous
Confirmation Bias is the tendency to look for information that supports, rather than rejects, one’s preconceptions, typically by interpreting evidence to confirm existing beliefs while rejecting or ignoring any conflicting data (American Psychological Association).
This is a good scientific definition from a reliable source that I can use at the beginning of my paper, during the background information