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Carole Cadwalladr argues in her article "Google, Democracy, and the Truth about Internet Search" that big tech companies like Google and Facebook are manipulating how misinformation spreads. She claims they allow "fake news" sites to publish lies and misleading information, which had a huge impact on the 2016 US presidential election. As evidence, she notes disturbing autocomplete suggestions from Google like "Are Jews evil?" and discusses an interview with an expert who found extensive networks of right-wing websites spreading propaganda. While Cadwalladr makes a convincing case, her viewpoints could be skewed, and there may be other sides to consider.

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821 views

Googlev 2

Carole Cadwalladr argues in her article "Google, Democracy, and the Truth about Internet Search" that big tech companies like Google and Facebook are manipulating how misinformation spreads. She claims they allow "fake news" sites to publish lies and misleading information, which had a huge impact on the 2016 US presidential election. As evidence, she notes disturbing autocomplete suggestions from Google like "Are Jews evil?" and discusses an interview with an expert who found extensive networks of right-wing websites spreading propaganda. While Cadwalladr makes a convincing case, her viewpoints could be skewed, and there may be other sides to consider.

Uploaded by

ktrout919
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is the name of the article? Who is the author? What is the article about?

What is the author's


argument? 

The article “Google, Democracy, and the Truth about Internet Search”, by Carole Cadwalladr opens the
conversations discussing how big techs are manipulating just how misinformation is being distributed.
She goes on to argue the facts on how “fake news” sites are somehow exploiting the ways in which
Google and Facebook are publishing lies and misleading misinformation She believes and argues that
these lies had an enormous impact on the Presidential Election in 2016. Cadwalladr goes on to shed light
on her opinion to just how bad these lies go. Afterall, according to Google, “Jews are evil”, “Women are
evil” and “Muslims are bad and need to be eradicated” (539,540). I think Cadwalladr was trying to
inform the audience to just the magnitude of an impact that these lies have on us as a people and to our
Democracy.

Did you find the author was successful in getting his message across to the audience? Was her argument
ultimately convincing? Identify two or three claims helped you make your overall evaluation then
describe what it was about evidence that convinced you. 

I found that Carole Cadwalladr presented strong evidence to try and get her point across with regards to
just how Google and Facebook operate under lies and fake news. Her argument on how the right has
colonized the digital space around subjects such as Muslims, women, Jews and black people can be seen
as more of a bias opinion. I would like to see more evidence from such ideologies from whether right or
left politically have their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak. Otherwise it could be deemed that she was
leaning towards one side personally, and downplaying the other? Nevertheless, Cadwalladr argued a
great case and used academia and other industry experts to help build her case. Take for example the
conversation with Jonathan Albright, an assistant professor of communications at Elon University in
North Carolina. He was the one who first published the detailed research on how right-wing websites
had been spreading their message. Albright gathered a list of some of these fake news sites and he dug
down to see exactly where these links went. Turns out that they were being inserted into sites such as
YouTube, Facebook, and a million of others. Albright said, “They have created a web that is bleeding
through on to our web. This isn’t a conspiracy. There isn’t one person who’s created this. It’s a vast
system of hundreds of different sites that are using all the same tricks that all websites use. They’re
sending out thousands of links to other sites and together this has created a vast satellite system of
rightwing news and propaganda that has completely surrounded the mainstream media system (543).”
Albright had found thousands of pages which all included millions of hyperlinks. He goes on to say, "And
Facebook is just the amplification device. When you look at it in 3D, it actually looks like a virus. And
Facebook was just one of the hosts for the virus that helps it spread faster (543).

In what ways does Carole Cadwalladr believe that Google is jeopardizing democracy throughout the
world? What supporting arguments and evidence does she provide?

Cadwalladr believes that the tech giants are able to “game” the algorithms of Internet giants and create
a new reality where black is white, good is bad and right is wrong. Think about the “autocomplete”
feature built in the google browsing engine. Cadwalladr goes on to explain how typing “a-r-e j-e-w-s”
into the search engine renders the darkest and most insulting results. Why? Why is Google trying to
predict what questions will be asked?  And evil Jews are just the start of it. There are also evil women.
Cadwalladr goes on to mention how she wanted to check something, so she typed, “a-r-e w-o-m-e-n”
and Google offered her a few autocomplete choices. The first of which was, “Are women evil?”.
Cadwalladr proceeded to press enter and it turns out, that yes, women are evil. Every one of the 10
results “confirms” that they are, including the top one, from a site called sheddingoftheego.com, which
goes on to say, “Every woman has some degree of prostitute in her. Every woman has a little evil in her…
Women don’t love men; they love what they can do for them. It is within reason to say women feel
attraction, but they cannot love men (539,540).”

Another supporting argument was when Cadwalladr contacted Google with regards to these
autocomplete issues. She wanted explanations. Unfortunately, their response was, ““Our search results
are a reflection of the content across the web. This means that sometimes unpleasant portrayals of
sensitive subject matter online can affect what search results appear for a given query. These results
don’t reflect Google’s own opinions or beliefs – as a company, we strongly value a diversity of
perspectives, ideas and cultures (541).”

Cadwalladr makes clear what her own views are, but she does not say much about other viewpoints.
What objections could be raised to her argument, and where would you introduce them in her essay?

Cadwalladr has clearly made her main points throughout the article with regards to the disturbing ways
Google and Facebook operate. Autocomplete is flawed. However, we need to keep in mind that our
moral compass is a very important tool to amplify any situation. Her viewpoints could be skewed per her
ideas and beliefs. Especially where power is exploited to an unacceptable standard. There are always 2
sides to the story and not everyone will look through the same lens. Perhaps this is how others see, feel,
think? Cadwalladr mentions just that what we see, we hear, and read via the Internet is an enormous
influencer to us personally. It is easy to lose focus on what's right/wrong, especially after being fed
hatred and negativity from these past four years. While it is easy to lose sight of what is morally
good/bad. Especially when we are given access to information that questions whether an idea of ours is
socially acceptable. I think it all comes down to our level of empathy on how we react to "said" issue.

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