figure 1. ads from a Google search of three different names beginning with first name
“Latanya.”
(a)
(b)
(c)
Assume the ads are free speech:
what happens when these ads appear
more often for one racial group than
another? Not everyone is being equally affected by free speech. Is that free
speech or racial discrimination?
Racism, as defined by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, is “any attitude, action, or institutional structure
which subordinates a person or group
because of their color.” 16 Racial discrimination results when a person or
group of people is treated differently
based on their racial origins, according to the Panel on Methods for Assessing Discrimination of the National
Research Council. 12 Power is a necessary precondition, for it depends on
the ability to give or withhold benefits,
facilities, services, and opportunities
from someone who should be entitled
to them and is denied on the basis of
race. Institutional or structural racism,
as defined in The Social Work Dictionary, is a system of procedures/patterns
whose effect is to foster discriminatory
outcomes or give preferences to members of one group over another. 1
These considerations frame the
relevant socio-legal landscape. Now
we turn to whether online ads suggestive of arrest records appear more often for one racial group than another
among a sample of racially associated
names, and if so, how technology can
solve the problem.
the Pattern
What is the suspected pattern of ad delivery? Here is an overview using real-world examples.
Earlier this year, a Google search for
Latanya Farrell, Latanya Sweeney, and
Latanya Lockett yielded ads and criminal reports like those shown in Figure
1. The ads appeared on Google.com
(Figure 1a, 1c) and on a news website,
Reuters.com, to which Google supplies
ads (Figure 1c), All the ads in question
linked to instantcheckmate.com (
Figure 1b, 1d). The first ad implied
Latanya Farrell might have been arrested.
Was she? Clicking on the link and paying the requisite fee revealed the company had no arrest record for her or
Latanya Sweeney, but there is a record
for Latanya Lockett.
In comparison, searches for Kristen
Haring, Kristen Sparrow, and Kristen
Lindquist did not yield any instant-