Draft: Forthcoming in The Information Society Shaping the Web: Why the politics of search engines matters Lucas D. Introna London School of Economics
[email protected] Helen Nissenbaum University Center for Human Values Princeton University
[email protected] ABSTRACT This article argues that search engines raise not merely technical issues but also political ones. Our study of search engines suggests that they systematically exclude (in some cases by design and in some accidentally) certain sites, and certain types of sites, in favor of others, systematically give prominence to some at the expense of others. We argue that such biases, which would lead to a narrowing of the Web’s functioning in society, run counter to the basic architecture of the Web as well as the values and ideals that have fueled widespread support for its growth and development. We consider ways of addressing the politics of search engines, raising doubts whether, in particular, the market mechanism could serve as an acceptable corrective. INTRODUCTION The Internet, no longer merely an e-mail and file-sharing system, has emerged as a dominant interactive medium. Enhanced by the technology of the World Wide Web, it has become an integral part of the ever-expanding global media system, moving into center stage of media politics alongside traditional broadcast media – television and radio. Enthusiasts of the “new medium” have heralded it as a democratizing force that will give voice to diverse social, economic and cultural groups, to members of society not frequently heard in the public sphere. It will Introna/Nissenbaum-Politics of SE 1 empower the traditionally disempowered, giving them access both to typically unreachable nodes of power and previously inaccessible troves of information.