For this week’s assignment, I decided to search for the seemingly omniscient online entity known as the Leviathan. I began by typing in some keywords into a search engine and fielded some results, but little did I know that I had stumbled onto a very influential Leviathan – Google. Thomas Hobbes defined the Leviathan as an absolute authority that society relinquishes some “natural rights” to resolve disputes and/or ensure peace and common defense. Now I know what you’re probably thinking…how does Google fit into this definition? Well Richard MacKinnon said that online Leviathans are present because we want the Internet to “flourish” and that will occur once we build a “framework of trust” and have a means to guarantee compliance with “netiquette” (Wallace 69). In the case of Google, the Leviathan is not exactly an “unpaid volunteer” as Wallace suspects, because it receives payment from advertisements, although it does provide services free to users (like the engine itself and applications like Gmail). Now, on to how Google acts as a Leviathan.
First of all, Google is moderated. It chooses what information and which sites it wishes to provide to users. Users can request to add their URL to the Google database, however, Google states that they “do not add all submitted URLs to [their] index, and [they] cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear.” So, Google is acting as an authority in deciding which sites are “useful” to users (by their own discretion). Now by allowing Google to sort out which sites are “worthy” we give Google the right to censor information provided to us as users. For example, Google has censored its services in
If Google were “unmoderated”, there would be more annoying pop-ups and advertisements and the search engine will display sites with little to no relevancy to your inquiry. And this would not preserve the “productive online group environment” that Wallace describes in Chapter 4. We use Google to search for an inquiry and expect to find a very close match in a fraction of a second. Without the PageRankTM system, you could scroll through literally a googol of site trying to find what you want. Searching will be ineffective and time consuming, and eventually, people would stop using it.
In all, Google is has a powerful influence on users (society) because, as their mission statement says, it “organize[s] the world’s information and make[s] is universally accessible and useful.” With such a loyal following, I believe the number of Internet users is going to grow and this Leviathan will live on until something comes along to take its place, another Big Brother.
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5 comments:
Samantha, you're absolutely correct in citing Google as a Leviathan, and you raise some interesting issues on how fair it really is. PageRank in my opinion is not a very fair technology, as it doesn't rank pages based on traffic, but on how many hyperlinks point to a given page. This makes it very difficult for new websites to gain visibility, as they aren't very visible on Google, even though its on Google's database. Its only when a good site is 'dugg' that it takes off: when someone finds a needle in the haystack of the Internet.
This trend only ensures the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The popular, revenue-generating sites have high PageRanks, and are shown first in the results, also buying even more advertising from Google as you suggested. The end result is a barrier to entry for new, innovative sites... the Google Leviathan.
Excellent job describing the often-overlooked leviathan that so many people use many times each day: Google. Their "Don't Be Evil" motto is presumably eroding as they muscle their way into cell phone networks (with the recent spectrum auctions), track our search histories, and constantly altering their search algorithms to choose which web sites to present as search results and which order to present them. Google is such a great example of a powerful Leviathan online, since many small businesses live and die by the sword of Google's changing search algorithm: one month, a company would be listed on the first page of search results for a given set of terms, in which Google would be the major driver of their business, and another month that same business may fail due to lack of listing on the first page of search results for that same set of terms. I liked your description of how Wallace describes our desire for a "framework of trust" on the internet, a value set that Google may have gone too far over the line and away from "Don't be evil."
Hi Samantha,
Great job identifying a unique, powerful and often overlooked Leviathan of the online world. You make a great point about how we are all relinquishing control to Google in allowing this company to make the decisions about which websites are valid, important, and most relevant to our interests or needs. I think it is interesting that Google has grown in popularity and power and is now censoring information to remain favorable with certain governments. Google only seems to have more control with each passing day, demonstrated by its acquisition of YouTube and subsequent 'crack down' on illegally downloaded shows/movies etc. In this way, Google is becoming an omnipresent Leviathan of more online spaces than most people realize. Here comes Big Brother...
Nice post Samantha! The topic of Google as leviathan is a monumental one, since, as you pointed out, he who controls information is endowed with a lot of power. Most people have become so accustomed to typing a keyword into the search bar and having sites pop up in order of relevance that they don’t stop to think of how that relevance and order is determined. This is a critical issue in that those results higher up are more likely to get more “hits,” and this sort of factor can greatly skew perception of the population. Taking the process “for granted” in this way suggests that most users are unaware of Google as leviathan and are not prepared for the fact that their access to information may be censored or misleading. Also, since it is impossible to come up with different results than those provided while using Google, there is an impossibility of infractions against the leviathan, and hence, a lack of punishment.
Hey Samantha,
Great Post! Your observation of Google acting as a Leviathan is keen and insightful. I found it interesting how you noted that Google decides which sites are “useful” to its users by their own discretion. That got me thinking that although Google is certainly acting as a Leviathan, they are, however, doing a pretty good job at it, which is why they are such a popular and efficient search engine. I believe that the Internet community as a whole has the power to use the “raised eyebrow” technique against Google if they cease to conform to our standards of Internet search. Just like a group member that starts slacking or fails to pull his or her own weight, we can kick Google out of the “group” of sites we visit every day if it stops meeting our expectations. We have alternatives that we can turn to and the people than run Google know that they must conform to our preferences if they want to continue to be a part of our daily lives. In a sense, we (the Internet community as a whole) are acting as a Leviathan against Google in that we have the power to punish the company for not conforming to our standards.
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