Here is my response after reading the article entitled “When algorithms control information, what of democracy?” (ABC News, 2017).

•What were your first thoughts on reading the article?

I had never heard of the OCEAN test before and quickly googled it and took the test. I was quite astounded by how accurate it was, the personal analysis report was a priceless piece of market research.

While completing my media degree I read a lot about the media’s supposed role of being the fourth estate, the entity free any bias that informs the public of the happenings of the government. Yet I feel that now we cannot escape bias, whether it’s commercial television or the internet, we are always being manipulated.

•Do you think people are aware of the issue?

Algorithms are not new, I think many people are aware of this issue, yet possibly not to the extent to which it penetrates our lives. Even I was stunned when the Liberals won the last election, I had not seen one positive piece of media about them. All my friends on facebook are quite left leaning or silent so it was easy to think that that was the general consensus. Of course my white male baby boomer father was not surprised when the Liberals won, which highlights the effect of confirmation bias from search algorithms as discussed in this week’s lecture.

•What can be done to combat the issue, or does anything need to be done?

There are a lot of benefits to machine learning and using algorithms both to our society and economy. Yet to combat this issue we would need to focus on public awareness, so people know the extent of the information being collected about them, how it is being used and what they can do about it. Most importantly people need the digital literacy skills to be able to think critically, question everything and evaluate resources.

•Are universities the right place to teach data ethics?

Although ideally the information should be freely available to everyone, universities are educating the next generation of data scientists and software developers who will build the technology that utilises these algorithms. They need to understand the social ramifications of products they build. It would benefit all students, such as politics and sociology students, to study data ethics.

•Do we need regulation?

I believe that we do need regulation in this area. How far is too far? As Keary (2019) points out, what is personal data has not been legally defined in the United States, and having the legal right to collect data and using it ethically are two different subjects, so legislation needs to be implemented in this area to protect people’s personal privacy.

References:

Keary, T. (2019). The balancing act of data mining ethics: the challenges of ethical data mining.Retrieved fromhttps://www.information-age.com/data-mining-123481736/

ABC News. (2017). If Google and Facebook rely on opaque algorithms, what does that mean for democracy? [online] Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/ai-democracy-google-facebook/8782970?pfmredir=sm