Google: Society's mirror

I found it eye-opening that Google was changing perspectives on authority by way of their website.  During class, it was stated that Google changed authority by democracy and it switched the role of the authority figure in society.  When Google was becoming a powerful web tool, businesses found ways in which their pages could come first by hacking the page to find the secret to such a website's success.  These  businesses saw Google as enemy number one because they felt that Google played unfair by controlling the search results to better suit themselves.  Google responded by passing the buck along to their algorithm.  Google publicly says that they have no say over the search results, besides safe search and moderate search.  The algorithm does not have a mid of its one, but more like a million minds.  Google uses the most popular pages that can be found in links on other pages.  The people are the ones who create these links as well as use them.  Google is able to do nothing while search results are compiled every second by society's wishes, rants and dreams.

Google's authority is their algorithm.  This equation is how the creators of Google can afford to take a step back from their creation and tell the businesses that they have no control.  It is very easy to throw the concept of God at this topic.  Here, you have an entity that is not quite human nor machine (more like an equation), that appears to know everything.  It is easy to see the Googlism, but if you take a moment to realize who is giving Google its searches, it will turn around and point at the users.  Google's searches are a mirror of ourselves, our society.  Whatever many people have searched, discovered, unveiled, linked, is what  Google shows us.  If I Google beauty in Google Images, I will be bombarded by the society's idea of beauty. 

Google's searches are not man made, or so Google creators tell us.  If they truly do care about the society and making limitless information available, then there is no capping of the searches.  Google is a power tools that is utilized by the many people, and therefore has many perspectives of many topics for its searches.  It is almost like walking up to about million people and asking them to take a survey.  Google's searches are powerful, but it can only be as powerful as the people who use it.