Communications of the ACM

of the algorithms of those companies.

Not only are the algorithms behind these major services complex and secret, often users do not know that any selection logic or personalization occurs at all, says Karrie Karahalios, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois and co-director of the Center for People and Infrastructures. In a study involving 40 of her students, more than half were “surprised and angered” to learn there was a “ cu-ration algorithm” behind the Facebook News Feed. She says such “invisible algorithms,” in the interest of efficiency, can mislead people by acting as secret “gatekeepers” to information.

Karahalios recommends browsers offer graphical cues to users to show how the algorithms work, so users know why they are seeing certain results. For example, when an item ranks high in search results because it has many links to other things, she suggests that might be signaled with a larger type font. She also says users should have some control over how the algorithms work. “I think it is important to have some levers that users can poke and prod to see changes in the algorithmic system,” she says.

In 2014, Karahalios and several colleagues presented five ideas by which algorithms, even secret ones, might be “audited” for bias by outside parties. In one, the Sock Puppet Audit, computer programs would impersonate actual users, generating test data and analyzing the results. Similarly, the testing and evaluation of algorithms could be crowd-sourced, by some mechanism such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

The advocates of audits agree these ideas present technical and legal difficulties, but they say some kind of external checking on the fairness of these ubiquitous services is needed. “ Putting warnings on search results is not enough,” Karahalios says.

Luciano Floridi, a professor of phi-
losophy and ethics of information at
the University of Oxford, says the power
and secrecy of Google is worrisome in
part because of the company’s near-
monopoly power. “Nothing wrong has
happened so far, but that’s not a strat-
egy,” he says; “that’s like keeping your
fingers crossed.” He says recent revela-
tions that Volkswagen AG manipulated
engine software to fool regulators and
voluntarily adopt an equal-time rule or
the warnings, but he says either or both
could be built into the browser, acting
automatically when search results con-
tain the names of political candidates.

The idea government might play a role in regulating search engines is not new, and it is strongly opposed by search companies and by many First Amendment watchdogs. Frank Pasquale, now a professor of law at the University of Maryland, in 2008 wrote a paper recommending the establishment of a Federal Search Commission. He argues free speech concerns do not apply to search because search engines act more like common carriers, which are subject to regulation, than like media outlets, which enjoy First Amendment protections.

As for why we need federal regulation, Pasquale says, “When a search engine specifically decides to intervene, for whatever reason, to enhance or reduce the visibility of a specific website or a group of websites ... [it] imposes its own preferences or the preferences of those who are powerful enough to induce it to act.”

Beyond Elections

Concerns about algorithms that search, select, and present information extend beyond search companies. “I’ve looked at the black box algorithms behind Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the others,” Pasquale says, “and I’m pretty troubled by the fact that it’s so hard to understand the agenda that might be behind them.” He supports the idea of a “trusted advisory committee” of technical, legal, and business experts to advise the Federal Trade Commission on the fairness

There is no evidence
that any search
engine company
has ever tried to
manipulate
election-related
search rankings.

consumers are not reassuring.

Floridi says the risk of mischief is
compounded because Google’s users
are not customers in the retail com-
mercial sense. “They are not account-
able because users are not paying for
searches,” he says. “We don’t have cus-
tomers’ rights with Google.”
Floridi advises Google on “the right
to be forgotten” regulations by the
European Union. He says he finds his
contacts at the company to be “open-
minded and sensible” about ideas for
regulating search. “If it makes good
sense socially speaking, and if it makes
good sense business-wise, then there is
a conversation on the table,” he says.

Further Reading

Bracha, O., Pasquale, F.,

Federal Search Commission? Access, fairness, and accountability in the law of search. Cornell Law Review, September 2008 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=1002453

Epstein, R.,

The search engine manipulation effect and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Aug. 18, 2015 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/E4512. abstract

Pasquale, F.,

The black box society: the secret algorithms that control money and information.

Harvard University Press, 2015 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog. php?isbn=9780674368279

Sandvig, C., Hamilton, K., Karahalios, K., and Langbort, C.,

Auditing algorithms: research methods for detecting discrimination on Internet platforms. 64th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, May 22, 2014 http://acawiki.org/Auditing_Algorithms:_ Research_Methods_for_Detecting_ Discrimination_on_Internet_Platforms

Zittrain, J.

Engineering an election – digital gerrymandering poses a threat to democracy. Harvard Law Review Forum, Jun 20, 2014 http://harvardlawreview.org/2014/06/ engineering-an-election/ Videos – How Google Works https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Md7K90FfJhg https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=3tNpYpcU5s4