Since there are so many people that rely on Google, there is a lot of blind trust that goes into it. But we as the audience never took into account how these things actually work. We don’t really know how Google figures out which results are the first to show up, or if it’s even credible. Most people, me included, don’t even go past the first page of Google results. If I search something up and I can’t find anything on the first page, I literally exit out and try to search something else. The first few results on Google hold a lot of influence over anyone who is trying to find something. They look trustworthy, so users will click it first. But that’s not really the case. It’s that blind trust we have in Google and their search results.
This can be problematic for many reasons. We don’t know if the search results are biased, misleading, or just straight misinformation. Safiya U. Noble found that there can be biased information when researching. Google even has sponsored articles appear first when you search something up. Even though it says sponsored, it is still the first thing people see when they search something up. Users could possibly click on it without realizing it’s sponsored. It all goes back to the blind trust people have in Google and believing everything shown is credible. Searching for information is not as easy as it feels. Search engines like Google are supposed to make researching easier. However, we have to be careful of what we are read online.
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