The Center for Critical Internet Inquiry is a left-wing think tank based out of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) focused on studying the impact of technology on society. The organization was co-founded by Sarah Roberts and Safiya Noble, two left-of-center feminist academics involved in the Minderoo Initiative on Technology and Power and UCLA’s Center on Race and Digital Justice respectively. ^{1 2 3}

The Center receives funding from the Archewell Foundation, an organization devoted to fighting online harassment founded by Prince Harry of the United Kingdom and his wife Meghan Markle, both of whom have expressed admiration for Noble’s writings on the alleged racism of search engine algorithms. ⁴

Ideology

The Center for Critical Internet Inquiry lists the critical race theory-inspired concepts of “racial and social justice” among its “guiding principles.” ⁵

The Center has a “land acknowledgement” at the bottom of every page on its website stating that the Center is based “on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples.” ⁶

Leadership

Sarah Roberts is the co-founder and faculty director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. She is also a co-director of UCLA‘s Minderoo Initiative on Technology and Power, a chapter of the Minderoo Foundation, launched with a $2.9 million grant to study the “intersection of technology, power, and society” from a left-wing perspective. Roberts is also a research associate of the Oxford Internet Institute. In 2018, Roberts was awarded fellowships by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Roberts studies technology from a feminist perspective with a focus on how technology impacts “global inequities and social injustice.” ^{3 1}

In February 2021, Roberts called blog platform Substack “a dangerous direct threat to traditional news media” due to the lack of established journalistic standards on its independent blogs. In response, independent journalist Matt Taibbi wrote a defense of Substack on his Substack blog. ⁷

Safiya Noble is the co-founder of the Center, as well as the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Gender Studies, African American Studies, and Information Studies at UCLA, as well as the director of UCLA’s Center on Race and Digital Justice, co-director of UCLA’s Minderoo Initiative on Technology and Power, and the interim director of the UCLA DataX Initiative. In 2021, Noble was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. ²

Noble is the author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, a book that examines “racist and sexist algorithmic harm in commercial search engines.” As evidence of such racism, Noble has cited the tendency for algorithms to associate ethnic minority women with pornography. Noble has also blamed racist algorithms for causing mass shootings, such as the Charleston Church shooting by Dylan Roof. ^{2 8} Noble has also claimed that Google’s algorithm hindered the Black Lives Matter movement by promoting George Floyd’s criminal record and presenting inaccurate descriptions of the slogan “defund the police.” ⁴

Noble has called for instituting government regulations on algorithms to combat racism. She opposes a colorblind approach to race, which she considers a form of racism. ⁴

In April 2024, Noble and novelist C. Pam Zhang boycotted speaking at the University of Southern California’s graduation in response to alleged abuses perpetrated by the school towards students protesting Israel’s conduct in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. ⁹

In January 2021, Noble attended the Aspen Institute‘s Commission on Information Disorder to propose approaches to “rampant disinformation” in society. ¹⁰

Funding

In 2021, Prince Harry of the United Kingdom and his wife Meghan Markle established the Archewell Foundation to combat online bullying and harassment. The organization has a dedicated fund for financing the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Prince Harry and Markle have stated, “From the moment we started reading Algorithms of Oppression, we had a deep appreciation and respect for Dr. Safiya Noble and her critical work.” ⁴

The partnership between the Archewell Foundation and the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry is administered by Vanessa Wrenn Rhinesmith, the executive director of UCLA‘s Center on Race and Digital Justice, the chief of staff to Safiya Noble, and the former executive director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. She is also connected to the Minderoo Initiative on Technology and Power. ^{4 11}

The Center has also received funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. ¹²

1. “UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry Receives $2.9M Award to Launch Minderoo Initiative on Technology and Power.” UCLA School of Education and Information Studies. August 13, 2020. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://seis.ucla.edu/news/ucla-center-for-critical-internet-inquiry-receives-2-9m-award-to-launch-minderoo-initiative-on-technology-and-power.
2. “Home.” Safiya U. Noble, Ph.D. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://safiyaunoble.com/
3. “Sarah T. Roberts.” Sarah T. Roberts Ph.D. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://drsarahtroberts.com/
4. “Why is Prince Harry campaigning for the woke censorship of the internet?” Free Speech Union. January 14, 2021. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://freespeechunion.org/why-is-prince-harry-campaigning-for-the-woke-censorship-of-the-internet/.
5. “Guiding Principles.” Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://c2i2.ucla.edu/about/
6. “Homepage.” Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://c2i2.ucla.edu/.
7. Taibbi, Matt. “In Defense Of Substack.” Substack. March 1, 2021. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://www.racket.news/p/in-defense-of-substack.
8. Young, Robin; Hagan, Allison. “Search Engines Like Google Are Powered By Racist, Misogynist Algorithms, Says MacArthur Fellow.” Wbur. September 30, 2021. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/09/30/safiya-noble-internet-research.
9. McDougall, AJ. “Two Speakers Boycott USC Graduation After Pro-Palestinian Protesters Arrested.” Yahoo! News. April 29, 2024. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://au.news.yahoo.com/2-speakers-boycott-usc-graduation-035550438.html.
10. Ingram, Mathew. “What can we do about society’s ‘information disorder’?” Columbia Journalism Review. November 16, 2021. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/what-can-we-do-about-societys-information-disorder.php.
11. “I’m // vanessa.” Vanessa Rhinesmith. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://www.vanessarhinesmith.com/.
12. Pasternak, Alex. “Knight is shoring up defenses against our new public health crisis.” Fast Company. November 19, 2019. Accessed May 18, 2024. https://www.fastcompany.com/90432722/our-new-public-health-crisis-knights-millions-aim-to-make-the-internet-less-toxic.