This is likely happening because the public is more likely to click on an arrest-related ad for a black-sounding name. Higher click-through rates mean higher ad quality scores, which in turn mean lower minimum cost-per-click rates, which in turn means instantcheckwhatever's bottom-feeding ads appear more often. In other words, society is more interested in the arrest records of people with black-sounding names, so Google adapts. The professor does raise this as a possibility in her article.
But if that's the case, why is society more interested in the arrest-records of people with black-sounding names? Perhaps it's because in America, blacks are disproportionately likely to have criminal records. (Some quick Googling - in 2010, according to the census, blacks were 13.6% of the population, but in 2009, according to the FBI, 28.3% of arrests were of a black person.)
I'm not making any judgements about black people by quoting these statistics - perhaps these arrest rates reflect institutional racism, or disproportionate levels of poverty, or lack of access to opportunity. But I'd rather the professor focus her time on correcting that disparity instead of trying to make Google's AdWords algorithm correspond to something other than the interests of the public.
But I'd rather the professor focus her time on correcting that disparity
But it's all circular. If society associates "black-sounding" names with criminal records, that leads to employment discrimination (http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873) which results in "disproportionate levels of poverty, or lack of access to opportunity." It's all related and it all needs to be at least understood.
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This is likely happening because the public is more likely to click on an arrest-related ad for a black-sounding name. Higher click-through rates mean higher ad quality scores, which in turn mean lower minimum cost-per-click rates, which in turn means instantcheckwhatever's bottom-feeding ads appear more often. In other words, society is more interested in the arrest records of people with black-sounding names, so Google adapts. The professor does raise this as a possibility in her article.
But if that's the case, why is society more interested in the arrest-records of people with black-sounding names? Perhaps it's because in America, blacks are disproportionately likely to have criminal records. (Some quick Googling - in 2010, according to the census, blacks were 13.6% of the population, but in 2009, according to the FBI, 28.3% of arrests were of a black person.)
I'm not making any judgements about black people by quoting these statistics - perhaps these arrest rates reflect institutional racism, or disproportionate levels of poverty, or lack of access to opportunity. But I'd rather the professor focus her time on correcting that disparity instead of trying to make Google's AdWords algorithm correspond to something other than the interests of the public.
But I'd rather the professor focus her time on correcting that disparity
But it's all circular. If society associates "black-sounding" names with criminal records, that leads to employment discrimination (http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873) which results in "disproportionate levels of poverty, or lack of access to opportunity." It's all related and it all needs to be at least understood.
Yes, you're absolutely right - it does need to be understood.