Dylann Roof and Google

Though this article brought up good points on biases that can occur on Google search, I disagreed with its entire suggestion or implication that Google search was responsible for Dylann Roof's hate crimes. To start off, Dylann Roof suffered a variety of mental illnesses such as "social anxiety disorder, mixed substance abuse disorder, schizoid personality disorder, depression by history, and a possible Autistic spectrum disorder," which this article completely failed to mention (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/dylann-roof-charleston-killing-mental.html?_r=0

). To completely ignore such vital information that played a big part in Roof's killing of nine black lives, suggesting that Google's search results were the catalyst, seems ridiculous. This is because no person in a stable state of mental health would commit such crimes just because he read about it on the Internet. Rather than blaming Google for showing Roof such results that influenced his behavior, the blame is entirely on Roof alone, possibly as well as his guardians who failed to take precautionary acts to ensure that their mentally ill child was not taking part in any dangerous acts in his unstable state of mind.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that Google may present bias in what it displays as primary suggestions. For example, during the 2016 presidential election, studies and reports showed that Google searches may have been highly biased, in favor of Hilary Clinton (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-12/google-bias). For example, when "hilary clinton cri-" was typed into the search, suggestions such as "hilary clinton crime reform" or "hilary clinton crisis" popped up, instead of "hilary clinton crimes" which were displayed in other search engines such as Bing or Yahoo. In response, Google defended itself claiming that the "autocomplete algorithm purposefully avoids suggesting offensive words in conjunction with any person's name," as a response to people's criticism that negative and offensive suggestions were displayed after typing in a name. (http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/10/google-says-search-isnt-biased-toward-hillary-clinton/85725014/). Still, studies have shown that Google search results may lean liberal on topics such as abortion, gun control, homosexuality, and politics (https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/family-relationships/googles-search-results-may-have-a-liberal-bias/vp-AAkCc0A). 

So what can be done about this? Should every search engine develop an algorithm that will suggest completely neutral, unbiased information each time? While this may be ideal, I do not consider this to be a realistic solution. Instead, I believe that when doing research or leaning about a new topic, everybody should learn to approach the subject from an unbiased standpoint, learning about all the different sides to it first, and then developing an opinion about it. While individuals must train and practice in doing so, which also may not be a realistic solution since every person using the internet may not have access to such training, in a world where there is so much biased information on (and off) the Internet, it is better to take responsibility for our educated actions instead of being lazy and forming our opinions on the first bit of information presented to us.