The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new imperatives and demands push to the fore increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet, critical information scholars continue to demonstrate how digital technology and its narratives are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial. Technologies consist of a set of social practices, situated within the dynamics of race, gender, class, and politics, and in the service of something—a position, a profit motive, a means to an end. In this talk, Dr. Noble will discuss her book, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, and delve into issues ranging from marginalization and misrepresentation in commercial information platforms like Google search, to the profound power struggles that violate civil, human, and collective rights through AI and machine learning projects. Dr. Noble will be in conversation with Newhouse Director Julie Walsh. 

Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of the inaugural NAACPDr. Safiya Noble is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of the inaugural NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award, and author of the highly acclaimed Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press). She is an internet studies scholar and David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as the Faculty Director for the Center on Race & Digital Justice and the Co-Director for the Minderoo Initiative on Tech & Power, and where she Co-Founded the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She and her work have been featured in Time, The Guardian, the BBC, CNN International, Wired, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, among many others. Her talks and research focus on the ways that digital media impacts our lives and intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, and technology.