HACKER Q&A
📣 Red_Tarsius

What's up with these Google search results?


I don't quite know how to put it so check for yourself.

Look up images for "happy white woman" on google and other search engines.

Then look up "happy Asian/Black/Mexican woman" on google.

Also look up images for "European art" on google and other search engines.

  👤 KKPMW Accepted Answer ✓
One possible explanation would be to think what kind of pictures or photos would get labels with words "white woman" in them. If it was a single woman smiling it would probably be labelled "happy woman" or just "happiness". The word "white" is likely to appear when there are other people of different colors in the same picture. For example "Afro man and white woman happy at a pool" or something like that.

Same with European art. The prefix "European" would only be added when the author of the picture tries to contrast it with something else, or push some agenda about "European art". Otherwise it would just be under "art".

Case in point with another term: look at "American scientists" and "white American scientist". The second one will have more results of black people. This is again, in my opinion, because the addition of "white" is mainly added by those who concentrate and write about things related to race.

Another case in point - try looking for "thin woman" and observe how the proportion of pictures with obesity in them is bigger compared to searching for "woman" only.