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.

Comments

Re:Derhythmed

[Rotworm]

True, but if Bing will produce customized searches equivalent to holding a mirror up to someone's face, people might opt for Bing instead of Google's "high road." I agree with you that it's better for society to have an opt-in system, I just imagine it might be too risky for a company to implement such a system.
These two systems revolve around how badly people want their mirrors.

I'm bombarded....

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I'm bombarded....

[dbc]

Actually, the thing that is most hurting political discourse in the USA is that the nutter branches on *both* the left and the right are controlling the conversation... er... shouting match. I'm tired of the nutter left's frothing, angry, invective that is targeted at anyone who disagree with them. And I'm tired of the right's white-washing of the subtle complexities in the problems that we face. Political discussions have become a discourteous shouting match between pseudo-intellectuals on the left and anti-intellectuals on the right. Where has thought gone?

Fortunately, I have discovered a reliable filter to identify nutters. Present raw data and see how people react. If the person gets angry, it says volumes about the person and their agenda. Raw data has no agenda. A person who has a non-linear, non-thoughtful response to raw data should be avoided like toxic waste.

Re:I'm bombarded....

[Sir_Sri]

That poses the problem of what raw data properly represents the problem at hand. Ideology tries to boils down the complexity of real systems to a single ideological approach to solving them. It's not that real data is bad, only that real data requires years of research and multiple PhD's to grasp to any degree, and even then the best you have is an understanding of what the data says, not what good policy is about the data.

As a simple example, one can fairly easily find statistics on how much the US spends per capita on healthcare (vs other countries), as a percent of GDP, etc... and then health outcomes. Ok.. so the system is bad, raw data proves a point but provides no solution, since the questions is 'what should the healthcare system be' not 'what should it not be'. Good job proving the system is bad. Politics and ideology is 'what system should we implement, how do we massage that into a system we can implement, and how many votes will it get/cost me?'

The economy is another great example. You have GDP, GDP/c, median incomes, gini indices, etc. You can look at real data about what other countries do to. But there are a plethora of experts with PhD's in economics who can't agree on what a good gini index is, or how to get to whatever a good number is. So what does look at the raw data get you exactly? An opportunity for 4 years of poorly paid research to earn a doctorate which shows you know more about the problem than the average bloke, but not how to fix it.

And that assumes real data exists for your problem. Which, in many cases, it doesn't (the US wealth gap for example doesn't really map to other historical situations if you are trying to ask the question 'why', as it ties in deeply to foreign ownership and investment, education etc.). Data can guide an ideological approach, but by itself raw data rarely maps to implementable policies in anything other than an ideologically biased fashion.

Re:I'm bombarded....

[wrook]

It's a funny thing. I agree with you that the mainstream media portrays a mostly consistent message. I also agree with you that the two main parties "mostly share the same political ideology, and work very hard to demonstrate their differences on a limited number of areas". But I kind of get lost after that.

I'm not an American, so my perspective may be skewed, but I see American media as not being neutral per se. I see them as following the same political ideology that both of the main parties do. From the perspective of portraying party agenda, I suppose that is neutral. But I tend to notice a definite American ideological bias in the reporting. No reporting can be truly neutral, but especially for foreign affairs issues, the media portrays issues without an attempt to explain opposing points of view. This isn't neutral from my perspective.

What is even more interesting is when discussing the few issues in which the two parties diverge, the media tends to present a polarised view without actually taking sides. Well, in fairness to the OP, I often feel that the Democrat side of the issue is often portrayed in a somewhat softer light. But like you say, it's not anything like reporting in some other countries. Both sides are portrayed to some extent. However, they are portrayed in such a way as if they are polar opposites. It's like there are only two solutions to everything: the Democrat way and the Republican way. It not only makes it appear that the two sides are much farther apart than I think they are, but that there can't possibly be any other solution than those two.

When I discuss politics with my American friends I always have to preface the discussion with a definition of right and left. Their view of left is still way over into the right for me. If I say that I don't agree with one point of view, I get a huge amount of grief about how the other party has ruined whatever it is we're talking about. But if I say that I don't agree with something both parties agree on people often stare at me like I must be completely insane.

Coming back to the point, I often find that Americans are already getting this filtered media where they are only presented with issues that the two parties disagree on. They enjoy this view because it is simple, fits their preconceived notions of the world, but still gives them something to argue about. If I am very cynical I might even say that it gives them the illusion of choice at election time.

Of course, I am also biased and I am presented with news conforming to my views and confirming my biases. What made me interested about your post was that we both viewed the starting conditions similarly and yet came to dramatically different conclusions, probably based on those biases. Very interesting, indeed.

That's what Pariser described

[TrekkieGod]

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...

Self-filter Bubble

[Roger W Moore]

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.

Re:Derhythmed

[SilasMortimer]

This is a good example. Equating socialism with a lack of liberty is a very good example of someone forming an opinion from 100% bias.

Not that I'm a socialist, but this is a good way of showing that no one is immune, whatever platitudes they throw out to show that they're above it.

Re:Derhythmed

[Arancaytar]

Just make it a third button next to "I'm Feeling Lucky":

"Google Search | I'm Feeling Lucky | Confirm My Opinions"

Re:Derhythmed

[SilasMortimer]

Another good example: confusing freedom for liberty.

For instance, you have both the freedom and the liberty to tell me to go fuck myself (you are able to do it and you are allowed to do it). You have the freedom, but not the liberty to hire some guys to come make me fuck myself (you are able to do it, but you are not allowed to do it). You have neither the freedom nor the liberty to make me do it yourself (your lack of freedom being your innate inability).

To put it another way, you have the freedom to sneak into your neighbor's house when they're not there and take their valuables. As long as you find a way to do it, you have the freedom to do so. If you did it, the ability to maximize the benefits to you that result in your own actions would also imply freedom. However, liberty says you're a dickhead and the cops will do their best to find you and get you. Your neighbor has the freedom to find you and get you, too, however you would be fortunate in the fact that he does not quite have the liberty.

You're welcome.