Rethinking gaming: The ethical work of optimization in web search engines
Rethinking gaming: The ethical work of optimization in web search engines
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重新思考游戏：网络搜索引擎优化的道德工作
DOI：
10.1177/0306312719865607
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发表时间：
2019
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Malte Ziewitz
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Malte Ziewitz
当衡量标准变得至关重要时，被衡量的对象就会发现自己处于一种岌岌可危的境地。一方面，他们有强烈的动机去对衡量标准做出回应，以获得一个有利的评级。另一方面，过度的调整有可能被系统运营商标记并惩罚，被视为一种“操纵系统”的企图。据说，衡量标准在如实描绘被衡量对象的常态而非其期望状态时才是最有用的。在本文中，我探讨了网络搜索引擎优化的实践和策略。借助在英国对搜索引擎优化（SEO）顾问进行的人种志实地调查所获取的材料，我展示了在搜索结果中最大化网站的可见度是如何涉及在“良好”与“不良”优化之间不断变化的界限中进行周旋的。具体而言，我感兴趣的是SEO顾问巧妙地调整自身以应对搜索引擎运营商引发和委托的道德模糊性时所进行的道德工作。基于将道德视为一种实际成就的研究，我认为优化的道德性本身已成为一个治理和争议的场所。研究这种“合乎道德”的实践不仅为重新思考诸如“操纵系统”之类的流行说法提供了机会，而且还引起人们对当代排名机制边缘常常被忽视的权力争夺的关注。
When measures come to matter, those measured find themselves in a precarious situation. On the one hand, they have a strong incentive to respond to measurement so as to score a favourable rating. On the other hand, too much of an adjustment runs the risk of being flagged and penalized by system operators as an attempt to ‘game the system’. Measures, the story goes, are most useful when they depict those measured as they usually are and not how they intend to be. In this article, I explore the practices and politics of optimization in the case of web search engines. Drawing on materials from ethnographic fieldwork with search engine optimization (SEO) consultants in the United Kingdom, I show how maximizing a website’s visibility in search results involves navigating the shifting boundaries between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ optimization. Specifically, I am interested in the ethical work performed as SEO consultants artfully arrange themselves to cope with moral ambiguities provoked and delegated by the operators of the search engine. Building on studies of ethics as a practical accomplishment, I suggest that the ethicality of optimization has itself become a site of governance and contestation. Studying such practices of ‘being ethical’ not only offers opportunities for rethinking popular tropes like ‘gaming the system’, but also draws attention to often-overlooked struggles for authority at the margins of contemporary ranking schemes.
DOI：
--
发表时间：
2019
期刊：
In Proceedings of ACM FAT*
影响因子：
--
作者：
Milli, Smitha;Miller, John;Dragan, Anca;Hardt, Moritz
通讯作者：
Hardt, Moritz