Is S.H.E. the future?
A new search engine taking out the bias
What do you get when you search “greatest writer,” “greatest painter,” “top CEOs,” or “school girl?” Let me tell you, a bunch a white guys, hardly any women, and over sexualized images.
Pantene (yeah, that’s right, the hair company) is on a mission to take out the bias with search. Society has taught search engine algorithms to become biased. On average, women are out shadowed by men on searches and don’t come up until typically the fourth result. In fact, when you search “top CEOs,” only 10% of the results represent women, even though 28% of CEOs are women.
S.H.E., which is short for Search Human Equalizer, is a Google Chrome extension that removes the bias in search. S.H.E. operates on the back end by filtering the results to produce less biased results. Right now, it is working on 150 common searches and producing search results that are unbiased. The program also encourages users to flag more terms that are biased in order to change them. Eventually, S.H.E. will grow and create more results that are a more accurate representation of women and people of color.
To install S.H.E. for yourself, visit shetransforms.us.
Source: Refinery29, APNews, YouTube
