Algorithms of Oppression offers insight into the ways in which efforts to optimize search engines have undermined the accurate dissemination of information to the detriment of its users. I have never found search engines particularly useful for scholarly purposes and this text goes a long way towards explaining why. These engines are not simply affected by confirmation bias, but actively (if perhaps unconsciously) implement it. Simple answers friendly to existing user beliefs are promoted; complex answers that would be valuable to scholars are pushed downward.
When considering the effect this has on my own field (I specialize in Late Antique History), the “Fall of Rome” came to mind. Few subjects in Late Antiquity elicit such consistent debate, of course, but I specifically recalled a conversation from a year or two ago with my grandmother who, attempting to learn more about what I was working on academically, had looked into the Roman Empire’s collapse on the internet. The searches she conducted provided her with a simple and painfully outdated explanation fond of the term “barbarian invasion.” With her experience in mind, I typed “Fall of Rome” into three search engines on my own. I have included screenshots of the initial search results below.
Google has tossed its “AI Overview” at the top of the page. The description of what the Empire’s collapse was is decent enough, but the “causes” section becomes concerning rapidly, listing out unchallenged a number of highly controversial reasons that remain under intense debate in the scholarly community. Each item the AI provides has a link attached to it, but a user must follow it to its source website to see the citation; none is provided written out on the search page.
Bing, to its credit, offers a centralized set of information all pointing back to the subject’s Wikipedia page. Short of diving into real scholarly works, this is probably the best set of information it could provide a user on the subject. Things fall off quickly afterwards, however. Beyond the initial Wikipedia information, the search results provide a set of sponsored websites, all offering tours of the city of Rome.
I expected to see some kind of modern political content crop up given the prevalence of the “Fall of Rome” narrative in American conservative circles, but Ecosia has proven my point better than I had anticipated. The top slot on this search was occupied by none other than Hillsdale College attempting to market a box set of DVDs on Roman history. I will let the description the institution has provided in the search results speak for itself.
In each case, the search engine has done the user hoping to find information on the collapse of the Roman Empire a disservice. At best, the engines are burying them in almost entirely unrelated advertisements; at worst, directing them to modern propaganda. It is no wonder that my grandmother found little useful information on the subject. For all the convenience they provide, these search engines have done little to make information on this subject more accessible to the public.