Urman, Aleksandra; Makhortykh, Mykola; Ulloa, Roberto; Kulshrestha, Juhi (29 May 2022). Where the Earth Is Flat and 9/11 Is an Inside Job: A Comparative Algorithm Audit of Conspiratorial Information in Web Search Results (Unpublished). In: 72nd Annual ICA Conference - "One world, one network?!". Paris, France. 26.05.-30.05.2022.
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)We conduct a comparative algorithm impact audit to examine the distribution of conspiratorial information in search results across five search engines: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and Yandex. Using a virtual agent-based infrastructure, we systematically collect search outputs for six conspiracy theory-related queries (“flat earth”, “new world order”, “qanon”, “9/11”, “illuminati”, “george soros”) across three locations (two in the US and one in the UK) and two observation periods (March and May 2021). We find that all search engines except Google consistently displayed conspiracy-promoting results and returned links to conspiracy-dedicated websites in their top results, although the share of such content varied widely across queries. Most conspiracy-promoting results came from social media and conspiracy-dedicated websites while conspiracy-debunking information was shared by scientific websites and, to a lesser extent, media. The fact that these observations are consistent across different locations and time periods highlight the possibility of some search engines systematically prioritizing conspiracy-promoting content and, thus, amplifying their distribution in the online environments.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Communication and Media Studies (ICMB) |
UniBE Contributor: |
Urman, Aleksandra, Makhortykh, Mykola |
Subjects: |
000 Computer science, knowledge & systems 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Mykola Makhortykh |
Date Deposited: |
24 Jun 2022 11:03 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 16:20 |
Additional Information: |
algorithm audit, algorithms, conspiracy theory, web search, search engines, Google, bias |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/170674 |
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit item |