Slashdot Mirror
The Rise of Filter Bubbles
eldavojohn writes "Eli Pariser gave a talk at TED which posits that tailoring algorithms are creating 'filter bubbles' around each user, restricting the information that reaches you to be — unsurprisingly — only what you want to see. While you might be happy that your preferred liberal or conservative news hits you, you'll never get to see the converse. This is because Google, Facebook, newspaper sites and even Netflix filter what hits you before you get to see it. And since they give you what you want, you never see the opposing viewpoints or step outside your comfort zone. It amounts to a claim of censorship through personalization, and now that every site does it, it's becoming a problem. Pariser calls for all sites implementing these algorithms to embed in the algorithms 'some sense of public life' and also have transparency so you can understand why your Google search might look different than someone with opposing tastes."
Hit the link below to watch a video of Pariser's talk.
Google has mentioned a number of times that customization is a major feature of their searches. While this summary isn't without cause to be nervous about such a thing, instead of algorithms to correct algorithms, it's no major feat to allow users to disable some of the non-spam related algorithms. In fact, it's no major feat to disable algorithms by subcategory: geographical location, operating system, language, search history, etc.
Especially considering the natural tendency to discard information that is in contradiction to ones personal views on the world. If the actual inputs are then skewed to support that view, then it just gets even more extreme as a person tends to discard the more moderate views in favor of more extreme ones.
is this post filtered? hello? ha looow?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I'm bombarded with the opposing view constantly. Because most all of the media is biased towards the Left in this country, and any attempt to represent the majority opinions (Conservatives - just check the Battleground Poll, question D3) is met with howls of protest and ad hominem attack. I have to actively seek news and information that represents my views because none of the major services ever send it to me. This article is mostly disinformation.
They talk about this like it's a bad thing, but why would I, as a member of $Ideology_1 want to waste my time listening to the lies of $Ideology2..N?
I wish I could view Slashdot via a filter bubble that would omit or correct dupes, slashvertisements, blogspam and obvious spelling mistakes.
This would be a pretty avant-garde line of thinking if there hadn't been an entire book written about it nine years ago ...
Read my blog.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization#The_Internet
We though greater connectivity would broaden our horizons, but it has only made us more narrow minded. And we have only ourselves to blame. I feel the way to combat this is to go outside (gasp) and meet/befriend local people of various backgrounds, and to seek to empathize more and to judge less. I know being judgmental is a rather common bad habit for for self-professed "nerds", and one that's hard to walk away from, but dammit please just try. Society has been going down this slippery slope for quite some time now and it will get worse the more we let the current carry us.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Having these filters as an option is a good thing; that's just a tool you can use to refine a search.
Having them on by default and invisible (or obfuscated) is not. In this case, information is being hidden from searchers who may not even realize that filtering is taking place.
The TED page for the speech has a transcript for those who don't have sound, or just don't want to sit through a nine-minute video.
Would it exacerbate the problem, or merely hide it? Discarding information that contradicts currently held beliefs is natural enough that most people aren't aware of it, even without personalized search algorithms. I think the bigger issue is the ready availability of like-minded communities that will reinforce your beliefes, no matter how outrageous and outlandish they are.
In his presentation he gave an interesting example. He says he leans liberal, but has conservative friends in facebook, because he's interested in their viewpoint. Then he started noticing that he stopped seeing news links from his conservative friends because the facebook algorithm noticed he didn't click on them. Basically, despite saying that he's interested in the opposing viewpoint, he actually isn't, and was filtering the information himself. The algorithm merely made it transparent and more convenient. Nothing actually changed about the information he was consuming.
It is a problem that people tend to ignore information when it goes against their preconceived notions, but it's not a problem that technology does what we want it to do. If a website kept bombarding me with stories that I didn't want to see, I'd stop visiting it, I wouldn't suddenly start reading those stories.
On second thought, I'm reminded of every April 1st on slashdot, and how every story is bombarded by comments from idiots saying how much they hate slashdot on April Fools' day, and yet they don't seem to leave even for that one day. They keep reading every story and then talking about how much they hate it. Maybe you can make people read what they don't want to read after all...
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
One of the nice things about slashdot is actually the fact that the readers are not segregated politically.
True, but the more important thing, I think, is that over the years I have often (but not always) discovered that opposing ideas I find on Slashdot have some merit behind them. Hence when someone says something I think it wrong I will often trust it enough to check into it a little and see whether I need to re-evaluate my position. This is why I like Slashdot.
However when reading some random website and encountering something contradictory I am far more likely to assume that the author was some random idiot that doesn't understand what they are talking about than I am to re-evaluate my position simply because experience has shown that this is the most probable case. Hence I would argue that the biggest problem is not so much a "filter bubble" but more that when you hear a dissenting voice you are unlikely to believe it because you do not trust it to be right...although I suppose you could call that a self-filter bubble.
The human animal is designed to filter information. You have billions of nerve endings pouring information into your brain, and it does a brilliant job of consolidating that information into a general perception of physical reality which is still further pared down by attention, belief, expectation, focus, and emotional state. At any given moment you are present to some infinitesimal amount of truth limited by time, space, and your state of mind. To presume that any point of view has more that a circumstantial amount of real truth in it is hubris on the verge of egomania. Plato's Cave should be taught to kindergarteners, and the lesson reinforced at every grade until achieving one's doctoral degree.
Perhaps then, we might finally put an end to people who so committedly believe their own point of view and further feel obligated to shove that belief down the throats of others. That goes for positions on the left, right, and stranger points not on the standard plane of sociopolitics.
A wise soul would surround him/herself with people from many walks and perspectives. Read writing from desperate perspectives. Take everything with a grain of salt. Bring rigorous logic, critical thought and honest skepticism to everything one hears, sees and reads. It takes genuine rigor to manage a healthy intellectual diet. Even more these days when most of the common forms of information and media have fallen into the hands to the same Plutocrats and Corporate Thugs who've worked so diligently to hijack our government. Disagreement is healthy. So is debate. Its only through the process of ideas and perspectives banging up against one another and subjecting our ideas to broad inquiry that any meaningful truth may be discovered.
If you live in a filter bubble, you poison yourself with intellectual monoculture. Monoculture is inherently unstable, unsustainable and doomed to collapse. Challenge yourself, assume you are mistaken, and look for evidence to prove it. You will find it. There is always evidence to support antithesis. When you can own that there are countless sides to any argument, you can actually begin to pursue the truth as is it, not just an intellectual self justification. The truth is hardly ever, easy, simple or exactly what you expect or believe. Its only advantage is that it is in fact the truth. Pursuing truth demands courage and dedication, perhaps that's why there are so few people who've dedicated themselves to finding truth, and why they're so revered.