Google autocomplete search algorithms and the Arabs' perspectives on gender: a case study of Google Egypt
Search engines have become an essential part of everyone's life, with Google being the most popular. Google Search provides the autocomplete feature for faster and easier search results, offering 10 top suggestions at a time, and these may influence how users view different social groups....
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2020
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16817/1/40148-143249-3-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16817/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1356 |
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| Summary: | Search engines have become an essential part of everyone's life, with Google being the most
popular. Google Search provides the autocomplete feature for faster and easier search results,
offering 10 top suggestions at a time, and these may influence how users view different social
groups. Different scholars have explored online discourse to reveal stereotypes about certain
groups. However, little or no attention has been paid to technological affordances to reveal
broader gender biases and stereotypes in the Arab World. This study examines how Google
autocomplete searches can reflect the Arabs' perspectives on gender. Google Egypt is selected
since it is top-rated in the number of internet users. Google is queried by entering a combination
of Arabic question wordsfollowed by the Arabic equivalents for men and women. One hundred
and ninety questions were generated and categorized according to the qualities they referenced.
The most common assumptions about men indicate that they are cheaters, liars, self-dominant,
emotionally strong, and smarter than women. They are also stereotyped as being more likely
to admire young women, prefer sons over daughters, and desire polygamy. Women, on the
other hand, are stereotyped as plotting, materialistic, emotional, and sensitive. The study
concludes that since such generalizations may entail exaggerations and are not evidently right
all the time, one must be careful about adopting such stereotypes and making them part of each
gender's views of the other. Bearing in mind the perpetuating function that technology may
have of existing stereotypes and social norms, users and developers of Google alike must pay
more attention to gender biases that algorithms may establish and disseminate. |
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