
Are Search Engines Blackwashing Their Search Results? - affiliator
google &quot;portraits of European people&quot;:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=portraits+of+European+people&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch<p>Here are my results:<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;6s9qK9g.jpg<p>Similar results with bing, duckduckgo.<p>No so with Yandex:<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;zvbwMuF.jpg<p>An Alt-Right vlogger has done a video on the phenomenon. The same thing happens with the search term &quot;European People Art&quot;<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=b14IgSPkPC4
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csydas
No, they're not, and if you look at what pictures are actually being link you
can start to understand it a bit more.

What the first result is returning is keyworded based on art discussions about
European works. Relevant articles discussing the uniqueness of portraits of
black people in rennaissance paintings are the results you're seeing. Likely
it's the inclusion of "people" which is throwing the results, as you see a
much "whiter" result set if you search "portraits of european" (plural or not
doesn't matter). In fact, for the original search if you scroll down you begin
to see the paintings and portraits you are expecting to see.

Basically, it's just keywording providing results you weren't expecting. The
word that throws it is "people".

Edit: and in regards to why Yandex isn't showing it, it's because the top hits
are from a russian artist's site, so they're just weighting russian sites
higher. For whatever reason, people clicked to these images when they searched
it on Yandex.

This is a non-story.

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affiliator
There is a difference in the results for "portraits of European" and
"portraits of Europeans".

"portraits of Europeans" contains a large number of non-European faces.

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csydas
> "portraits of Europeans" contains a large number of non-European faces.

Which are the same that are showing up via the articles about art of european
history from the original result. Again, this is just keywording working
against your expectations. The relevant results for these keywords lead to
articles discussing the presence of non-whites in European artwork.

What you envision for the results of the search terms are apparently different
than how other people envision them. In this case, the search is considering
portrait paintings, not portrait photos or anything, and from there, it looks
like the most popular results are these articles.

Search for "[pictures, photos] of european people" or just "european people"
and you get more pictures of white europeans. Unsuprisingly, once you search
"paintings of european people" you start to get the aforementioned paintings
once more.

This isn't a conspiracy or social manipulation, it's just that there is
apparently enough discussion and interest in older european paintings
including black people that searches related to paintings of europeans returns
a few results with black people or indian people.

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affiliator
so you are think websites containing the keywords 'portraits', 'Europeans',
and 'people' happen to predominantly be talking about portraits of non-
European people by Europeans?

~~~
csydas
Yes, and the search results show that there are. I'm not sure why you're even
questioning this and not just looking at the search results beyond the color
of the people in the paintings:

[http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/62747229987/marten-van-
my...](http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/62747229987/marten-van-mytens-iii-
portrait-of-a-young-black)

[http://afroeurope.blogspot.ru/2010/08/history-of-black-
peopl...](http://afroeurope.blogspot.ru/2010/08/history-of-black-people-in-
europe.html)

[http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Art/Addi...](http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Art/Additional_art.htm)

Yes, blogs and tumblr sites but these are valid results.

~~~
affiliator
Well if they are blackwashing the image results, they would be blackwashing
the regular results too. I am not 100% convinced but I think you're best
argument is that a search for "european people" gives the results you would
expect. If they were blackwashing results, you would expect to see the same
phenomenon there.

What do you make of the results for the search term "American inventors" which
returns largely black inventors.

[http://i.imgur.com/uTF3FTN.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/uTF3FTN.jpg)

~~~
csydas
I think it reflects the reality of what people apparently consider great:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_inventors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_inventors)

Though, admittedly after Edison, Carver, Whitney, Franklin, Moorse, I ran out
of people I consider "famous" inventors, so the list doesn't really impact me.
I do question their inclusions for some inventors though...as quite a few were
not born in the US, and only came to the US later on, but that's my own hang
up)

I also suggest that this is a prepared result and not a search result so I
don't hold it to the same scrutiny. I treat it the same as an advertisement.

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charlesism
There might be a story here; a story about a company that tinkered too much
with their search algorithm. I don't know what they've been changing over
there, but their search seems to get worse and worse every year. If the
application of AI to my search results means any unusual words are weighted
out of the equation, I'd rather just have the "dumb" results.

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brudgers
This might make an interesting blog post, particularly if supporting data was
exposed. Applying the Russell-Norvig definition of an artificial intelligence
as an actor capable of action in the world based upon its perceptions, then
what we may have is the manifestation of narrow perception.

