In the morality consideration of Google’s Page-ranking Algorithm, does it systematically exclude webpage containing opinions held only by a small segment of the population? Should every opinion on the web be given equal consideration?
If we Googled the question “what is the composition of Google’s page-ranking algorithm,” would an answer from Google be within the first few results of the list? The answer is yes. Google provides a link to the query on generating ranking results (Google, 2024), thereby demonstrating why this search engine came to dominate by quickly returning trademark accurate results to queries, thereby leaving many happy users within its wake. It would not be unreasonable to expect Google to suppress any result pointed to their secret sauce. However, they seem morally obliged to an extent to be transparent with users by providing an overview of how their algorithm works. That is the moral dilemma with Googles technology as it is only capable of going so far by design, where obscure results are marginalized or results that affect Googles trade secrets are suppressed or results that are not favored Foreign government are suppressed in foreign jurisdictions where Google does business. It is reasonable not to expect Google to share intellectual property that their company livelihood depends on. However, we need to carefully examine the impact Google’s page ranking algorithm has on excluding information that is important to segment of the population as the ramifications of mis-use of search engine technology as “…the most powerful information retrieval devices ever invented”(Quinn. P31), has an impact on governments and society in a way never seen in human history.
Moral Dilemma of Google’s Search Engine Monopoly?
We can immediately argue that Google’s page-rank algorithm excludes viewpoints that may or may not be held by small segments of the population because it is a system of instructions to optimize search results, meaning the most “relevant” content to the search term is weighted and returned to the top of the results at a cost to the least relevant content. Theoretically, the search engine gives equal consideration to all opinions on the web when the search is initiated. However, because of the user’s inquiry, the least related opinions are ranked far down the list. So, the question is not should all opinions be ranked equal, the question is should we force users to see all opinions in equal exposure even though they showed no interest in those results in the search inquiry typed? Google’s page-rank algorithm takes into account the number of pages that are linked to an opinion. Therefore, all opinions have a result to appear high in the ranking as long as the universal opinion captured by the search algorithm is that an obscure page in a corner of the internet deserves to appear high in the results list. While we aspire to have people and companies follow some form of ethical objectivism, to obey a universal code of moral conduct that exists outside of ourselves, it appears that algorithms and monopolies in and of themselves, seem prone to selfishly align with ethical theory based on subjective relativism where their results or actions may be right for them but not for you or in some instances you both win. Google’s task is to get the most revenue it can from advertisements. A poor showing of page-ranked results would not attract a lot of interest. So, whether an opinion is widely or narrowly held, it will not show in search results. However, Google has shown itself to act in its own corporate interest, and those of its shareholders to maximize profits, by putting services it offers in advertising around the top ranks (Associated Press. 2018) as well as, excluding results in the ranks that an authoritarian government may oppose which prevents all results whether favorable or unfavorable at the end users’ point of view, from equal consideration in sear engine results, due to hostile government intervention.
Does Google Do Any Wrong in Excluding Any Webpage Opinion – Kantian Analysis
In the case of Kantian Analysis of Google’s ethical responsibilities and behavior to treat all search queries the same, it does that by evaluating all search pages against the terms entered by the user. All the sites start off at the same value when the user hits the search button. Google meets their responsibility in performing their perfect duty of the algorithm telling the truth as to the closest and highest ranked matches to the search query. Perfect duty of the search engine to fulfill the request of the user while not fully resolving any conflict in the imperfect duty where the search results are generally presented as generated by the page-rank algorithm however imperfect duty can creep in where the duty to create a true list may be manipulated by folks who employ tricks to manipulate the search algorithm to give their search result a higher rank, as JC Penney (Fox, 2011) or an unfriendly government simply intervening to tell Google no to allow certain search results. Kantianism is a weak ethical theory however it seems ideally suited for a monopolistic corporate entity like Google and perhaps similarly justified if viewed under the prism of Act Utilitarianism.
Does Google Do Any Wrong in Excluding Any Webpage Opinion – Act Utilitarianism Analysis
Act Utilitarianism adds up the consequential results on happiness for all affected by an action as to whether their happiness increased positively or negatively without regard to intent. Searchers are happy if Google returns relevant hits. Google company is happy because its optimized search engine algorithm does well and maintains the company’s reputation as the best search engine. Advertisers are happy when their product or services, related to the search result, attract clicks and possibly sales. The only entities that are unhappy with the search results are those that fall low in the ranking. Ideally, who would want people not interested in their content to be forced to view such content? As such, those people would agree that the rank is fair if their search results did not have related content that was seek in the search. It appears with all four entities in agreement that Google search hit all the marks for related parties the sum of happiness is positive, therefore Google did good by building a smart search engine, unless of course the true result was thwarted for one reason or another then we may have minimized the sum of happiness that the action properly reflects a cost to the happiness of involved parties that are impacted by the search results. Google hurts its reputation when investigations prove they ignore their ethical sense of duty to do the bidding of any governments or skew search results to favor their own products.
Does Google Do Any Wrong in Excluding Any Webpage Opinion – Social Contract Theory
Search engine users do not go into explicit social contracts with Google where they are guaranteed that search results will not exclude opinions or all opinions will get equal consideration. It is the exact opposite where the page rank algorithm guarantees that it will weed out the least relevant results. Google search engine users want the search engine to act in the user’s self-interest and provide them and follow users with the best result. Google may deprive users of these results if it is in its best interest to do so to meet the request of regulators to stay in business or operate in certain locals. Users have the freedom to boycott Google if they disagree with the non-binding social contract or if they want to experience a less accurate search engine that may be prone to return more irrelevant search results, which might include more obscure opinions on the web, or not. A government or organization may see no conflict of rights in requesting that Google bans search results that are undesirable while Google has to wrestle with the moral dilemma of its rights to guarantee and deliver, on the liberty of its the best performance of it search engine, in results across the board.
Does Google Do Any Wrong in Excluding Any Webpage Opinion – Virtue Ethics Analysis
Google once aspired in its corporate charter to do-no-evil. (Epstein, 2016). Apparently that virtue stood in the way of making billions of dollars and they did away with it. Had it held on to its virtue of intellectual honesty to always be truthful, moral, and honest always, it would not gather user information from search results and other metadata without consent and sell them to advertisers. However, virtues are for people and not for monopolies. Google search results will chase the most money and as it cannot guide government policy it is also toothless to guide monopoly’s policy to courageously serve communities rather than be greedy and morally flexible in order to rake in the cash. A survey of economist revealed that 73% agree or strongly agree that “The nature of the market dominance of technology giants…warrant…change to antitrust policy” (Vaitilingam, 2020). The European economist that strongly agree with regulation that “the tech industry is rife with natural monopolies, which are routinely regulated in other sectors” (Vaitilingam, 2020). Regulation is needed to help return Google to virtuous pursuits of not excluding webpages whether or not they contain opinions not held by small segments of the population but to meet the needs of small numbers of searchers out there, that make up hundreds of millions of users, attempting to find the real rankings that give equal considerations, on the subject matters of their interest.
References
Associated Press. (2017, April 28). European regulators inquire about how Google ranks websites. Daily News. https://www.dailynews.com/2010/12/01/european-regulators-inquire-about-how-google-ranks-websites/amp/
Epstein, Robert, (2016, June 22). The New Censorship. US News. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated
Fox, Vanessa (2011, February 12). The New York Times Exposes J.C. Penney Link Scheme That Causes Plummeting Rankings in Google. Search Engine Land. https://searchengineland.com/new-york-times-exposes-j-c-penney-link-scheme-that-causes-plummeting-rankings-in-google-64529.
Google (2024, September 3). How Search Works. Google. https://www.google.com/intl/en/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/
Quinn, Michael J. (2020). Ethics for the Information Age (8th ed.). Pearson.
Vaitilingam, Ramesh (2020, November 11). How Leading Economists View Antitrust in the Digital Economy. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/11/18/how-leading-economists-view-antitrust-in-the-digital-economy/
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