Blaming Big Tech
Amid false claims about illegal votes, President Trump also suggested this week that “We won these and many other victories despite historic election interference from Big Media, Big Money and Big Tech.” In Slate, Francesca Tripodi digs into the history of these claims and debunks the most frequently cited reasoning behind the “Google manipulates votes” myth.
If you’re not yet familiar with the work of psychologist Robert Epstein extrapolating from hypothetical search engine manipulation to claims of actual vote swinging, her step-by-step refutation of these claims offers an introduction:
These numbers are a projection, based on a series of separate experiments. In one, Epstein tested how the order of information impacts how users perceive it. In another, he gave users a list of keywords and tried to test the ideological leanings of the results returned. In a third, Epstein worked with independent voters and manipulated the returns himself to see if the order of information impacted voter behavior.
Epstein’s ordering of information swayed voter perceptions, but he has no evidence of Google playing the same rank-order gymnastics.
Studies such as these fail to understand how ideological differences are embedded in keywords and networks to begin with.
We can safely expect to hear continued charges of platform bias and voter manipulation for the forseeable future. As policy makers consider what regulations to implement for technology platforms, Dr. Tripodi’s work on keyword signaling and search-term shaping suggests that our understanding of how search engines shape our perceptions may require significantly more reserach to understand and oversee.
An opinion double-header
Last week, two CITAP faculty were featured in the New York Times’s opinion section. Zeynep Tufekci described the challenges of designing randomized trials and why the method is poorly suited to helping understand the effect of mask-wearing on transmission of Covid-19.
That was one key reason universal mask-wearing became recommended, to prevent transmission to others — what’s known as source control. Preventing the mask-wearer from becoming infected, to the degree that it happens, is a secondary benefit.
Randomized trials look at the benefits of the intervention only for the person who is enrolled in the trial. It’s not possible for them to conclude how effectively masks prevent community spread to others — people who are not enrolled in the trial.
Tressie McMillan Cottom spelled out the stakes for the new incoming administration and the challenges they’ll face.
With no one able to trust the experts or willing to trust her own eyes, the pandemic rages on and no one is now working to cushion the country from the economic fallout that will surely last longer than the health crisis. Women have been pushed out of the formal labor force. Minority workers are overrepresented in the jobs that are not only the least secure but are suddenly now the most dangerous. White men, by and large, are just as anxious but not as vulnerable.
Recent publications and appearances
“You’re just drowning in content and overwhelmed by these individual pieces of advertising content, and really many of them are the same, you’re stuck trying to swim through this overwhelming sea of ads,” Bridget Barrett told ProPublica in a piece on the impact of a false ad tying Biden to Venezuelan socialists.
Daniel Kreiss called Facebook’s and Twitter’s policy enforcement “an unmitigated good” in Protocol’s post-election review of Big Tech’s election work.
The Election Coverage and Democracy Network recommendation of a “democracy-worthy frame” featured in a Washington Post story on post-election coverage practices.
Shannon McGregor suggested to the New York Times that a mass exodus off Facebook and Twitter to platforms like Parler and Rumble may be short-lived: “If there is no one to argue with, no omnipresent journalists or media entities to react to, how long will it last?” She also spoke with Politifact and Voice of America on how misinformation unfolded after the election.
“QAnon is about cultivating this way of knowing, by tying together all these stories and posts and creating a compelling narrative that offers an alternative to the mainstream press. That will persist, whether or not Q is posting,” Will Partin told the New York Times about the election’s effect on the QAnon community.
Tressie McMillan Cottom read excerpts from THICK on WFAE 90.7, Charlotte’s NPR news affiliate.
Zeynep Tufekci explored the potential long-term legacy of Trumpism in the Atlantic.
Coming soon
VCU’s Race, Space, Place Initiative is holding an unconference on the theme of Negative Space November 19-21, led in part by CITAP affiliate Lauren Garcia.
Metrograph is holding an online screening of Coded Bias November 11-18. Tickets are available for $12 for non-members.