Social and ethical topics at the Open Search Symposium #ossym23 – Review published
At the international Open Search Symposium 2023 from 4 to 6 October, researchers, tech experts and representatives from politics and industry discussed the foundations of human-centric, transparent and open internet search. Once again this year, there were a large number of presentations on social and ethical aspects of internet search: from global perspectives and cognitive biases to fundamental philosophical questions, many facets were highlighted. Particular emphasis was placed on the need for interdisciplinary collaboration in order to shape a fairer and human-centred digital future.
Here are the highlights (a full summary of all three conference days can be found here):
1 Keynote by Angella Ndaka: ‘Inclusion by whose terms?’
Angella Ndaka from the Centre for Africa Epistemic Justice opened the discussion with a critical look at the impact of technology-driven companies on African societies. She presented the ‘Ubuntu’ principle as a counter-model to algorithmic paternalism and highlighted the danger of how algorithms jeopardise democratic structures and reinforce social inequality. – A wake-up call for a global change of perspective.
2 Cognitive distortions in web search
A team from Graz University of Technology presented their study on the role of cognitive biases in internet searches: even neutral search results can be dominated by preconceived opinions. The researchers demonstrated a solution for analysing search behaviour in order to make users aware of unconscious biases and minimise them.
3 Philosophical and sociological perspectives
Manuel Theophil from the Rhineland-Palatinate University of Technology shed light on the role of human rights and ethical principles in internet searches. He discussed how concepts such as ‘freedom’ and ‘openness’ need to be rethought in the context of search engines in order to promote democratic processes.
4 Bias in search and recommendation systems
In his keynote speech, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Director of the Institute of Experiential AI at Northeastern University in the USA, showed the different types of biases that arise from algorithms and user interactions. He called for multidisciplinary approaches to break through filter bubbles and reduce biases at all levels of data processing.
5 Workshop on the practical handling of ethical aspects of internet search
Members of the #EhticsInSearch specialist group of the Open Search Foundation introduced participants to ethical aspects of web search in a practice-orientated workshop entitled ‘Dystopia vs Utopia’ and showed how developers can deal with them in everyday life.
6 Alternative search engines introduce themselves: Mojeek, fragFinn.de and Marginalia Search
One of the core concerns of the Open Search Foundation is to promote alternatives to the major search engines. For this reason, a forum has been held at #ossym for several years now, where alternative search engines can present themselves to the conference audience. This year, Colin Hayhurst presented the independent British search engine Mojeek, Anke Meinders the non-profit children’s search engine fragFinn.de and Viktor Löfgen Marginalia Search, a small, specialised search engine that enables users to find small, high-quality websites that are not considered relevant enough by the commercial search engines and are therefore not displayed in search results.
You can read a detailed summary of the three conference days on the Open Search Foundation website:
The conference proceedings are available to download free of charge:
e-publishing.cern.ch/index.php/OSSYM/issue/view/164/135
