This monopoly of information is a threat to democracy...

...large technologies such as Google need to be broken up and regulated, because their consolidated power and cultural influence make competition largely impossible. This monopoly in the information sector is a threat to democracy...

The implications of such marginalization are profound. The insights about sexist and racist biases... are important because information organizations, from libraries to schools and universities to governmental agencies, are increasingly reliant on being displaced by a variety of web-based "tools" as if there are no political, social, or economic consequences of doing so.

If Google isn’t responsible for its algorithm, then who is?

Google creates advertising algorithms, not information algorithms.

The notion that Google/ Alphabet has the potential to be a democratizing force is certainly laudable, but the contradictions inherent in its projects must be contextualized in the historical conditions that both create and are created by it.

If one holds power, one can withstand or buffer misrepresentation at a group level and often at the individual level. Marginalized and oppressed people are linked to the status of their group and are less likely to be afforded individual status and insulation...