Bursting the Filter Bubble

Jah-Wren Ryel writes with news that a few CS folks are working on a way to present opposing viewpoints without angering the reader. From the article: "Computer scientists have discovered a way to number-crunch an individual's own preferences to recommend content from others with opposing views. The goal? To burst the 'filter bubble' that surrounds us with people we like and content that we agree with. A recent example of the filter bubble at work: Two people who googled the term 'BP.' One received links to investment news about BP while the other received links to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, presumably as a result of some recommendation algorithm." From the paper's abstract: "We found that recommending topically relevant content from authors with opposite views in a baseline interface had a negative emotional effect. We saw that our organic visualization design reverts that effect. We also observed significant individual differences linked to evaluation of recommendations. Our results suggest that organic visualization may revert the negative effects of providing potentially sensitive content."

Comments

Viewpoints?

[Anonymous Coward]

A recent example of the filter bubble at work: Two people who googled the term 'BP.' One received links to investment news about BP while the other received links to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Why does this imply anything about political or other opinions?
I would assume the first person reads investment news generally, and the other not so much.

Re: Viewpoints?

[Anonymous Coward]

I kinda agree with you. As an investment topic you'll necessarily be interested in the BP's exposure to its oil spill, so in this case both groups will be interested in the environmental damage. So I imagine the BP example is flawed.

Or maybe I have it backward?

Re: Viewpoints?

[master5o1]

One might be Greenpeace's response, the other an article about how the company's stock price is affected by the spill.

Re: Viewpoints?

[LifesABeach]

The prudent investor would read both. The concerned environmentalist would read both. Filtering so that we don't offend? The offended should learn to read.

Re: Viewpoints?

[nobodie]

no, but I would also want to know how well the company could manage the cost of damages from another spill: which will undoubtedly happen if they don't invest more heavily in preventive measures and remediation preparation. his would be important to me as an environmentalist and as someone who wanted to make sure my legislators were thinking with information instead of cash.

its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm a generalist, i work in a few fields, including EE and CS - my colleague is pure CS

we're trying to have a conversation about a topic (distributed clocks) and based on our histories
we get entirely different search results, completely non-overlapping. his are general distributed
systems results and mine are narrowly turned to sensor networks

i had to ask him to make me a bibliography because I got sent into an entirely different
alleyway of the literature

thanks google

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[sg_oneill]

Its even more problematic in areas like climate change where a large portion of the population appears unable to distinguish laymans commentary from actual research by climate scientists. If people spend a lot of time looking at conspiracy theory , creationist, or other similarly themed stuff on the net, google throws lots of denial sites at them, whereas people who have more analyical interests are more likely to get articles from science sites. The problem here is that folks with the conspiracy bent end up having no way to find information that might clear up their confusion if all they are getting is wattsup or alex jones or whatever. This just feeds the confirmation biases, and thats proving really harmful to science education right now.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Burz]

Most people don't buy into climate conspiracy theory. IMHO, this new method is more likely to be employed by paid Public Relations types to blunt pressure calling for social and ecological responsibility. If they can target unhinged conspiracies as "bubbles", they can preferentially target informed progressives (or any online community) to serve the interests of big business.

I wouldn't trust the advertising business to be even-handed with acquired psychological tools.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[sribe]

The problem here is that folks with the conspiracy bent end up having no way to find information that might clear up their confusion if all they are getting is wattsup or alex jones or whatever.

Your point is well-reasoned. But, unfortunately, I think you are starting from a false premise because you simply do not understand how delusions work.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Burz]

TFA could conceivably be titled, "How to turn up the Noise on reality-based social circles".

'Having trouble marketing in Facebook and Twitter audiences? Here's how to insinuate your ads into their conversations while keeping their protests down to a minimum...'

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[phantomfive]

Good point.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[khallow]

Its even more problematic in areas like climate change where a large portion of the population appears unable to distinguish laymans commentary from actual research by climate scientists.

Rhetorically, why is that a problem? Just because someone is technically a "layman" in the field doesn't mean that they are less knowledgeable than climate scientists. Recall the fallacy of appeal to authority.

And "climate change" is a broad label for a very specific theory, anthropogenic global warming. I always find it interesting how people complain about anti-intellectual issues with their opponents and then turn around and display the same sort of issues in their own words and thoughts.

Finally, a large part of the problem is that a group of high profile climate scientists have been notably less confident in their private correspondence than in their public statements. When the private message is different in a material way from the public message and that difference gets revealed, then it breeds distrust.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop using Google.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Kell Bengal]

The problem here is one of correlation vs causation. Someone is not always right simply because they are the 'expert'; likewise, someone is not always wrong simply because they are a layperson. However, when it comes to knowing what you're talking about, there is a strong dependence on experience and familiarity with the subject matter. The vast majority of the time we might expect that an expert who devotes all of their efforts to studying a problem will have some advantage over those who engage with a topic briefly. That is why we value expertise in the first place. It does sometimes happen that experts get it wrong while laypeople get it right, but it's pretty unusual.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[ralphbecket]

Erm, if you're only exposed to "concensus" views and around the edges you get sympathetic nutcases like Lewandowsky claiming anyone who disagrees is a fantasist with a mental problem (oh, the sweet irony), aren't you in exactly the position you are concerned about?

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[khallow]

The problem here is one of correlation vs causation.

So why do the experts say different things in private than in public? What's so special about climatology that even rather small technical problems can't be discussed publicly?

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

When you really dig into the heart of this problem, IMHO it really comes down to the Scientists of the world being pretty dishonest in the first place. Although they're doing it with good intent, it's still wrong and it still causes a big part of the problem. The pattern goes like this: Scientists see a Big Problem for the World on the horizon in some of their data. They're not yet "standards of declaring new physics" sure of their conclusions, but the conclusions are so startling that they feel it's worth society expending effort to head off the possibility. Step two is when they say, "Well, most of the voting population isn't science-educated and/or doesn't understand probability and risk assessment, so they won't be able to rationally make the right call and join us in this effort, and we have to do something about that", and then they proceed to overstate their case and basically lie to everyone about the data and the probability of impact (not to mention the probability of the correctness of their assessments) in order to drum up support and dollars. Then when skeptics go on the attack, they find easy targets, because the case *was* overstated. Once you've started that cycle, there's no end to the debate over who's being dishonest about what.

Climate Change / AGW isn't the first time this has happened in Science, and it especially isn't the first time it's happened in earth/natural/climate -related sciences. Saving the whales (and every truly unimportant species of beetle), or the Global Cooling scare that preceded Global Warming are good examples. The public has been lead down the wrong path by the nose by natural scientists many times before, with big headlines in the pop science mags over the past several decades. They know what it looks like, and they're tired of it. AGW-response is as big a business as oil now. Think of all the dollars going into "renewables" and government offices and programs to oversee them and such. Most of those dollars are a complete waste unless they're pushing towards solutions like Space-based solar or Nuclear Fusion, because anything short of those requires we kill off most of the human population first to drop our energy requirements down to an acceptable level for the petty darling renewables of the green movements.

Back on point: this is obviously a list compiled by an AGW-denier, so take it with all the salt you want, but read the quotes and datelines. They *are* real, and they do make a point: http://www.examiner.com/article/arctic-ocean-warming-icebergs-growing-scarce-washington-post-reports

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[the_B0fh]

Apparently you are confident that you are reading their private correspondence correctly.

Why do you think you are?

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[the_B0fh]

Examples that haven't been debunked? Obviously your google search results might be a tad different from mine, so URLs would help.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[kiddygrinder]

this is the most annoying part of the AGW movement, moving to smarter sources of energy has a lot of benefits over just burning oil because "everything is probably fine". i foresee electric cars for example becoming the norm simply because there is a lot more room for improvement in the tech that will make them more efficient and powerful than fuel burners, and this is the easiest way to move forward for deniers and true believers alike.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[esldude]

Yeah, realized this problem a few months back. I and a friend while on the phone typed absolutely identical search terms in. We got entirely different results. Often even highly different numbers of results. Like I returned 81,000 search results once and he got over a 400,000 for the same term. What we also found was if we kept typing in the same search terms somewhere around a dozen or more times we then started getting the same results. Sort of odd behavior. I thought. This using google of course. Since then I keep a couple other search engines handy that are anonymous, one basically does a google search for you, but without your history attached. And sometimes when unable to find what I wish, this alternate search engines can be more relevant in what I get back on searches.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

TFA could conceivably be titled, "How to turn up the Noise on reality-based social circles".

Only if this specific algorithm were implemented anywhere besides this academic test.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[khallow]

I'll just note that burning liquid hydrocarbons is a pretty smart means of powering a car. You don't have to store oxidizers (it uses air). You don't have to store the resulting reaction products (they go out the tailpipe).

And whether gasoline, diesel, or other, similar fuels, they're easy to handle and fairly safe liquids. That leads to the remarkably high energy density of hydrocarbon fuels and success of the respective power systems (such as the diesel and internal combustion engines).

i foresee electric cars for example becoming the norm simply because there is a lot more room for improvement in the tech that will make them more efficient and powerful than fuel burners

While that would be nice, where's the improvement coming from? The mass limits are fairly hard because increasing energy density of your energy storage system is risky no matter how you do it. And most such systems are limited by the chemical energy content of the energy storage system (even mechanical storage like flywheels or compressed air tanks).

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[cyborg_zx]

Just because someone is technically a "layman" in the field doesn't mean that they are less knowledgeable than climate scientists.

I'm pretty sure that's what it means unless there's some ordination process to enter the Church of Climatology I don't know about.

Recall the fallacy of appeal to authority.

*False* authourity. Any old random scientist wouldn't be good enough. Appealing to a relevant expert is not a fallacy.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

The flip side of that coin is that this bubble reverser, if put to use by Google, would give me page after page of creationist drivel whenever I would want to look up something about biology, rendering the service useless to me.

(Note: having read TFA I know it wasn't about search results per se and that it isn't immediately clear how to apply the findings to search. But it's fun to speculate.)

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[TubeSteak]

What's so special about climatology that even rather small technical problems can't be discussed publicly?

There's nothing special about climatology in that regards.
It's completely normal for people doing work to not want you to see their errors; only the successfully completed result.

The only thing special about climatology is the number of people (who are completely unable to form an educated opinion on the subject)
that grasp at any straw to support their preconceived ideas. This applies to both sides.

What doesn't apply to both sides is the concerted effort, by the same lobbyists and think tanks who shilled for Big Tobacco, to manufacture misinformation and bad science in order to cloud the debate.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[SnowZero]

It is exceedingly unlikely that the results don't overlap after the first few, but if you can produce a copy of the two sets of results, I will forward them to someone on the Google Search team for debugging.

People hugely overestimate the effect of personalization -- it is a ranking tweak not a complete change to the search engine. It does not make economic sense to have personalized whole-web indexes.

Btw, if you don't like personalization ever, it is pretty easy to turn off:
    https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/54048?hl=en
Just remove web history and uncheck private results.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Ubi_NL]

Just because someone is technically a "layman" in the field doesn't mean that they are less knowledgeable than climate scientists.

No but it correlates very strongly

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Wrong answer. The right answer is: use Google, and Bing, and DDG, and as many other search engines are you can. All have their biases, and with all their results combined, you're probably closer to getting a somewhat balanced view of reality than either choosing or shunning a single one of them.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[kermidge]

Yeah, that's why I suggest making it a button to click, to see what one might be missing from within one's own de facto silo (no matter how diligent one might be in seeking diverging views, it's also something we can easily not do well.) As for probs with source, good data, all that, we already have that problem. Gimme a button, lemme see what I might not, otherwise. In the end I'll choose what to read. Having more from which to choose seems a good thing, albeit requiring me to make more decisions - but that's already part of the normal day's load in skimming the news and tech sites.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had exactly the same problem. I work primarily in machine learning (SVMs to be exact) and whenever I try to google technical stuff outside of that narrow little band I feel like I'm stuck in an echo chamber. There are tactics to escape like logging in to my GFs webmail and then googling, but that's hardly an elegant of efficient solution.

My dearest google: love the tailored results most of the time, but could we have a "search without assumptions" options?

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

"And whether gasoline, diesel, or other, similar fuels, they're easy to handle and fairly safe liquids.", I thought they where flammable and there where strict rules around petrol stations (eg there has to be enough space for a petrol tanker to go straight out at least its own distance).

"increasing energy density of your energy storage system is risky no matter how you do it" yea, you can end up with highly flammable liquids ;)

As well as increasing energy/mass storage ratio there are also other areas that could be improved (eg super magnets in motors)

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm pretty sure that's what it means unless there's some ordination process to enter the Church of Climatology I don't know about." Its called graduation. They get to have funny robes and everything

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[aaaaaaargh!]

Does Google adapt based on IP even if you never log into their "services"? I never log in and don't see any results tailored to me, but now I'm wondering whether that's actually true.

Regarding the paper: Don't bother reading it, it's superficial CS stuff with no proper background theory, they don't even model preferences right. :-(

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Gr8Apes]

Based on what's being responded to this post, it doesn't seem an isolated case. Granted, there's no proof, but given what we've all seen, it appears to be at least somewhat true.

The simple solution is simply using a "trash" browser instance that you can completely clear all cookies and local data from, you can avoid the personalization almost entirely, at least for a short while.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[dkleinsc]

Recall the fallacy of appeal to authority.

An appeal to authority is not fallacious if:
- The authority being cited is operating within their area of expertise.
- The authority is well-qualified to answer the question.

An appeal to authority is strongest if the authority's response to the question is the same as other authorities have to the same question e.g. a physicist explaining why the sky is blue (well-understood at this point) is a stronger argument than a physicist explaining why string theory is true (possibly right, but possibly wrong).

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[khallow]

Well, there is the recent hack of a "secret" Skeptical Science (a blog forum where some climatologists went to complain and scheme against their perceived enemies. Sure, it's entirely human to do stuff like that, but when stuff like that becomes public, it sends a mixed message to people that were counting on researchers to maintain some degree of impartiality.

The TL;DR summary of the linked article is climate skeptic/denialist Steve McIntyre rhetorically follows one relatively rational participant around and pokes in the data dump from this hack to see what bad, immature, and probably ego-building things people had to say about a certain Steve McIntyre. He also drifts past a few of the mini-scandal dramas of the time (like the reviewer who suggests changes to a paper and then turns around and criticizes the paper as being flawed on the basis of those changes he had suggested, triggering a near epic rant (choice bits got edited by McIntyre) from the paper's author).

Point is that here's a group of scientists supposedly impartially observing the harm of climate change, but it turns out that they felt the need to have a secret club. And once they do have this club, they spend their time scheming, name calling and fantasizing about ways to undermine their critics - as well as some members engaging in some high school level shenanigans.

And then there's the private concerns that only seem to make their way into the public when someone dumps someone's private records on the internet.

Mannâ(TM)s science is mostly good and I certainly think that his papers have discussed most of the caveats. However his reconstruction failed certain statistics (canâ(TM)t remember if it was r2 or RE) and even his newest reconstruction doesnâ(TM)t validate past 1400 if you donâ(TM)t include disputed series (which I have no idea why heâ(TM)s including them at all). Lets make this clear. There is a hockey stick shape in the data, but the original hockey stick still used the wrong methods and these methods were defended over and over despite being wrong. Just because a better analysis (Wahl and Amman 2007) using the same data shows very little difference doesnâ(TM)t change the fact that the technique was wrong. PCA isnâ(TM)t the best choice anyways⦠but thatâ(TM)s irrelevant.

Similar things were seen in the emails and code from the "Climategate" leak.

There are privately spoken material misgivings about research here that don't find their way into the research or discussion of the research. There are privately spoken biases which are hidden from the public. Now, maybe the level of illegally created public exposure is unfair to climate research, but it is turning up a lot of unscientific bias for a particular interpretation of modern climate.

And I haven't even touched upon what I think is the real problem - who funds climate research and the huge bias towards climate change advocacy that funding creates.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[khallow]

The only thing special about climatology is the stakes

FTFY. Whether superstring theory ends up being a key part of a valid theory of everything is mostly irrelevant to us. As a result, any biases, shenanigans, etc aren't particularly important.

The theory of anthropogenic climate change has deep relevance to modern society because we might have to completely restructure our energy system. There are huge winners and huge losers should that happen. Trillions of dollars are at stake either way.

The casual approach used in most of science just doesn't work in this situation.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[LifesABeach]

One should be very concerned when person A gets one set of results, and person B gets another set of results; both using the same search criteria.

I never thought that Myopia was communicable.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[LifesABeach]

"So why do the experts say different things in private than in public?" Because.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

How very true. It reminds me of Penn and Teller's "Bullshit". Their "Evolution" and "Climate Change" episodes run almost identical, except they come up with entirely opposite conclusions based more on their agenda than scientific research. Hence, that's a good definition of what "bullshit" is. And why it's near impossible to simply present people with contrary information and pretend that it'll magic sway them with their open mind on the subject.

PS - This is true of all sorts of things, of course. And there are plenty of times where it's better to be closed minded than to be little more than gullible--as those with an agenda are perfectly willing to skew facts or outright lie. So, the hard part is living with the fact that so many people are delusional and they have the power to effect your life, yet to still take pity on them instead of hate them for it. Of course, it's quite right (if perhaps a tiny bit spiteful) when the subject comes up to point out they're delusional. Because perhaps the biggest group is the gullible ones, and they need to hear when they're being lead astray by the delusional.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[SleazyRidr]

The casual approach used in most of science just doesn't work in this situation.

Why do you think that science is "casual". Do you think the germ theory arose because Dr. Pasteur was casual about his germs? Do you think we have nuclear weapons because the Manhattan Project was casual about atoms? Do you think we have the myriad of drugs we have today because the drug companies are staffed by casual scientists? Science works because people are continually testing things: nothing is accepted as true. The scientist who could disprove the Anthropogenic Global Warming argument would win every award that exists and some people might make a new award for them. It hasn't happened because everything we see points to AGW. There are hundreds of laboratories around the world trying to disprove it, but no one has succeeded. There is a reason they haven't, I'll let you work out the reason on your own.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget how many billions of dollars Chicken Little makes when he says the sky is falling. Or do you think there's no money to be made in carbon trading?

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[ultranova]

What's so special about climatology that even rather small technical problems can't be discussed publicly?

Moneyed interests who quote snippets from any such discussion out of context in order to discredit science and delay any attempts to do anything about the problem, since maintaining status quo is in their short-term interest. But a lot of the credit must also be given to the very human tendency to ignore any unpleasant potential outcomes, even if they're likely (which explains why casinos stay in business, and why Microsoft released Windows 8 with the Metro UI). This time that head-in-the-bushes approach is really going to cost all of us. Just goes to show that humanity is still not that good with that whole sapience thing...

Not that it really matters anymore - the double-whammy of running out of (affordable) oil and constantly growing disaster recovery costs are already taking care of the problem the hard way: by utterly annihilating industrial economies. That ever-increasing capital-leeching effect what keeps the world locked in a depression, and likely will for the next several decades even in the best case (the worst is a collapse and return to agrarian hellhole).

At this point, pretty much the only way this could end well is if someone comes up with an efficient method of converting cellulose to crude oil. Some bacteria show promise.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

So why do the experts say different things in private than in public? What's so special about climatology that even rather small technical problems can't be discussed publicly?

Because a good communicator speaks to his audience. That's not special to climate change to the point where it makes your question somewhat confusing. One thing difference I do know about people who study climate change, they tone down the alarmism for the general public. The people I know are much more worried then admit in public and in publications. I have no idea what "rather small technical problems" you are referring to. Are you referring to criticism like "There are no SUVs on Mars"?

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Curunir_wolf]

The problem here is that folks with the conspiracy bent end up having no way to find information that might clear up their confusion if all they are getting is wattsup or alex jones or whatever.

This is the first time I've seen anyone try to claim that Anthonny Watt's blog was the stuff of conspiracy theory. It's a clever technique. If we can associate anyone that questions the IPCC with the likes of Alex Jones and David Icke, we can avoid having to address any questions they have at all.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I never log in and don't think I see any results tailored to me, but now I'm wondering whether that's actually true.

You'll never really know will you? But I wonder how they handle disparate groups sharing a single IP in that case.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

So why do the experts say different things in private than in public?

For the same reason your parents spoke to each other differently than they spoke to you. As a child you don't understand that context is everything. The same is true of laymen.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Burz]

You could open an "incognito" or Private browser window for the search, then your cookies would not be visible and your history would not be applied.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[aaaaaaargh!]

I never log in and don't think I see any results tailored to me, but now I'm wondering whether that's actually true.

You'll never really know will you?

Isn't that testable? Set up two identical browsers on two geographically close machines, make them perform a series of differing and clearly biased searches (e.g. about a political topic or shopping preference) and compare the results of one and the same query from both machines after a few days or weeks.

I was hoping somebody did that already...

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think that science is "casual".

Probably because he's a liberal. Liberals like to tell people that what we have now is inadequate, so (government) money must be diverted to their solutions

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[khallow]

Why do you think that science is "casual".

Observation.

Do you think the germ theory arose because Dr. Pasteur was casual about his germs? Do you think we have nuclear weapons because the Manhattan Project was casual about atoms? Do you think we have the myriad of drugs we have today because the drug companies are staffed by casual scientists? Science works because people are continually testing things: nothing is accepted as true.

Do you think that the Manhattan Project would have worked out as successfully, if we had approached it like we would superstring theory? That is, come up with a ton of theories and play with large particle accelerators for a few decades? Do you think drugs would be as effective or safe, if we treated them as rigorously as traffic flow models or the gaming experiment of experimental economics?

One of the more notorious aspects of the "Climategate" thing, where someone released emails and code of scients at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, was the half-assed nature of the code part, particularly how data sets were normalized and merged in arbitrary seeming ways and with all sorts of weird, unexplained tricks applied.

The scientist who could disprove the Anthropogenic Global Warming argument would win every award that exists and some people might make a new award for them.

Why do you consider disagreement with AGW theory itself the only sort of possible disagreement? I agree that AGW is probably true to some degree. I don't agree that we should do something about that as a result. But my disagreement gets lumped in with everyone else.

My view is if you want to figure out economic problems like whether to do anything about AGW in the short term, then market driven and risk analysis approaches work better than computer models based on dubious temperature proxy data by people with both an ax to grind and status and financial incentive to throw things a certain way (towards exaggerating the impact of human effects on climate).

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[SleazyRidr]

I think traffic models are more rigorous than you realise. Also, if TPTB thought that we could win a war with superstring theory it'd be solved next week.

You only think that the data sets were merged/normalised in arbitrary ways because you don't seem to understand statistics. I would be more than happy to help you: if you could send me some examples of data sets I can try to explain the techniques used.

Also: if you don't think we should do anything you are insane. I agree that at least to some extent we will need to adapt to the new climate rather than steadfastly trying to keep it how it is now, but if you don't mitigate it at all it'll go way beyond the point where it's possible to adapt.

Re:its more than just political sensitivity

[khallow]

You only think that the data sets were merged/normalised in arbitrary ways because you don't seem to understand statistics.

No, it was because someone looked at the actual code (the linked example shows data being multiplied by a random looking array of numbers which happens to generate a "hockey stick" shape in the result). The comments are quite entertaining.

Also: if you don't think we should do anything you are insane.

[...]

but if you don't mitigate it at all it'll go way beyond the point where it's possible to adapt.

No evidence has ever been provided for this assertion. Actual predictions indicate relatively small temperature changes less than what the Earth experienced 50 or so million years ago (I see a graph that estimates peak temperature increase was 12 C over present day (the year 1999) for the region (present day arctic ocean). Solar activity hasn't changed that much over that period of time.

This is a standard chicken little threat. What's going to happen now that will be worse than what happened then?

Critical thinking

[nickmalthus]

"I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others." - Socrates

It is good to see someone researching ways to combat group think with technology.

Re:Critical thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should consider that "group think" could be a good thing...

Re:Critical thinking

[TubeSteak]

Don't confuse group think and tribalism.
The main difference is that group think is a problem for leaders, while tribalism is what motivates all the followers.

You can't combat tribalism nearly so easily as group think,
since the group identification is more than just a matter of facts.
Otherwise, the Red Sox wouldn't have any fans.

Re:Critical thinking

[khallow]

Ok, so what sort of priority should we put on this consideration?

Re:Critical thinking

[Opportunist]

How so? Because we all agree that something is right, up to the point that we don't really care whether it's right at all as long as we agree on it?

That's called "religion".

Re:Critical thinking

[smpoole7]

> "I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others." - Socrates

> It is good to see someone researching ways to combat group think with technology.

But that always, always starts with the guy in the mirror. First, get your own mind right (as Socrates says).

Next, most people listen to those friends whom they respect. You can challenge them to examine alternative points of view. The only thing I would ask (of everyone) is that you respect people who look at things as honestly as they know how, but reach a different conclusion from you. That's part of the human condition. The name-calling and "group think," as you call it, stops when we decide that it will stop.

I lean conservative/libertarian in philosophy, but I avoid polemics from all sides. My morning ritual nowadays consists of first checking the weather (because of my job), then heading to Real Clear Politics (www.realclearpolitics.com) to get a diversity of opinion, from Ezra Klein and Robert Kuttner to George Will and Mark Steyn. I also love a good (read: FRIENDLY) debate. If I see name-calling on either side, I lose interest in a hurry.

But have a friendly discussion with your friends. The old saying goes, "don't discuss politics or religion," but I say the opposite. If you show them respect, they'll learn to respect you, and in turn, they'll learn to respect opposing points of view. You might even learn a few things.

I certainly have. :)

Re:Critical thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

That's called "religion".

Actually, I believe it is called politics.

Re:Critical thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

How so? Because we all agree that something is right, up to the point that we don't really care whether it's right at all as long as we agree on it?

That's called "religion".

Actually, it's called "money".

Re:Critical thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

But have a friendly discussion with your friends. The old saying goes, "don't discuss politics or religion," but I say the opposite. If you show them respect, they'll learn to respect you, and in turn, they'll learn to respect opposing points of view. You might even learn a few things.

The reason for that saying is that most political/religious debates arent actually debates, and usually end up as, "fuck you, you're wrong and you should die" because most people are incapable of having an intelligent debate, and flip-the-fuck out when presented with facts that dont actively support their beliefs. This is actually rather well studied.

See cognitive bias, backfire effect, Semmelweis reflex, etcetc.

Re:Critical thinking

[Opportunist]

Religion and money have a lot in common. Both rely on faith these days.

Reverts or Reverse ?

[Taco Cowboy]

TFA used two "revert"s and I am wondering if the use of "revert"s is correct or should the word be "reverse", instead ?

Re:Reverts or Reverse ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was meant to be "reverse". "Revert' makes little sense in context.

Wanglish

[oldhack]

We found that recommending topically relevant content from authors with opposite views in a baseline interface had a negative emotional effect. We saw that our organic visualization design reverts that effect. We also observed significant individual differences linked to evaluation of recommendations. Our results suggest that organic visualization may revert the negative effects of providing potentially sensitive content.

Reads like somebody trying to write in English, and utterly failing.

Re:Wanglish

[Anonymous Coward]

More like an average thesis. Long sentences, lots of important sounding semi-technical words, double and triple negatives to make anyone's head spin, and nobody will risk their sanity in order to question the paper's validity.

Re:Wanglish

[ackthpt]

We found that recommending topically relevant content from authors with opposite views in a baseline interface had a negative emotional effect. We saw that our organic visualization design reverts that effect. We also observed significant individual differences linked to evaluation of recommendations. Our results suggest that organic visualization may revert the negative effects of providing potentially sensitive content.

Reads like somebody trying to write in English, and utterly failing.

Sounds like the sort who want to find only what they've already found.

Re:Wanglish

[Arker]

I couldnt say it fails to be English. However after perusing every link I am left without any information about what this 'organic visualization' thing actually is, and how it's supposed to work.

Leaving me only to comment more generally that it is not the search engines job to read the users mind, and shouldnt be, if only because it is impossible to do that with any amount of computing power. It's one of those disastrously attractive ideas that may take us another decade to finally start getting over.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Interesting and useful for Slashdot

[mattr]

I only skimmed the paper briefly but it is interesting in that:
- User clicks a wordcloud keyword/hashtag that draws lines from it to multiple florets (individual nacelle-like microflowers in a sunflower head), each of which represents a tweet in recent portion of a feed.
- Repudiates the idea of filtering to meet viewer expectations so everyone can see the same content.
- A cuteness factor (or what they say is "organic" being like a flower) apparently reduces gut reaction to tweets you do not agree with
- Viewer is able to actively pick tweets to read. Presumably as the sunflower head image is mathematically generated and each floret's color could be tweaked to match a positive/negative sentiment score, allowing the user to pick only items that agree/disagree with them but to do so consciously.

This last point would seem to be ideal and I'd like to see slashdot include something more than the slider ("read only above this score"), particularly for a topic that has over say 500 or 800 replies. How about a data visualization that shows all the posts/threads for an article and lets the user select based on where in this chart a post is? At the very list, something 2-dimensional not 1-dimensional.

But this is just as bad..

[Anonymous Coward]

because it is still committing the same, fundamental flaw - it is biasing the search results based on its perception of the user's disposition. This makes it USELESS as a research tool. A proper research tool would simply find ALL material relevant to the topic of interest in order to present an UNBIASED selection of information to work from.

This is the difference between a research/scientific driven model and a marketing/agenda-driven model. marketing/agenda - bad, research/scientific - good...

Re:But this is just as bad..

[Anonymous Coward]

More specifically, a tool should present all valid results and allow a researcher to refine a search as directed by the researcher. A marketing/agenda model forcefully inserts and/or removes results.

How about...

[ackthpt]

We quit this crap of trying to target things to audiences and get back to the good old days of yore when we went out and found things to fascinate, inform and enrich ourselves rather than suffering pigeon-holing. Honestly, I think farcebook, amazon and others have it completely wrong. I'm bored by the same ol - same ol. I'm an explorer and love to wander and see new things. Keep showing me what i've already seen or already bought and I'm losing attention.

Re:How about...

[JanneM]

What "good old days" where those? When you read the newspaper that conformed to your political viewpoint; the weekly magazine that covered any world events only as far as it affected you and others like you; watched only the TV shows that reinforced what you thought you already knew and believed?

Re:How about...

[ackthpt]

What "good old days" where those? When you read the newspaper that conformed to your political viewpoint; the weekly magazine that covered any world events only as far as it affected you and others like you; watched only the TV shows that reinforced what you thought you already knew and believed?

No.

The internet before all this tracking of metrics and trying to anticipate what I'd like to see more of. I don't know what I want to see next, but I generally don't revisit the same old thing. After I bought a new camera is not the time to keep showing me camera stuff. When I looked up something on ebay to see what I might get for it, they keep trying to interest me in it over a year later - I don't buy everything I look at and there's no "I'm just trying to get an estimate of what I might get from a suck^H^H^H^Hbuyer so piss off and don't try to waggle it under my eyes for the next twelve bloody months" tick-box.

Just anecdotal, but the things facebook seems to track and then keep showing me have about 95% odds of not being of interest at all, the remaining 5% I wouldn't click on a link on there anyway or it's only tangentially relevant to something I was posting about.

After a while I just tune stuff out.

Re:How about...

[AHuxley]

At some point price customisation or "dynamic" pricing must have become very useful and widespread.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/24/ramasastry.website.prices/
Your search habits fed back into a price just for 'you' at that moment on a sales site.

Re:How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to read the news through Tor: it keeps the filtering down. You also get random local news from somewhere, which can be an interesting look into what its like around the world.

Re:How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

We quit this crap of trying to target things to audiences and get back to the good old days of yore when we went out and found things to fascinate, inform and enrich ourselves rather than suffering pigeon-holing. Honestly, I think farcebook, amazon and others have it completely wrong. I'm bored by the same ol - same ol. I'm an explorer and love to wander and see new things. Keep showing me what i've already seen or already bought and I'm losing attention.

I run into this problem with eBay. The search results lousy. They don't even have a clue on what to display. Instead, they'll spam the results with a long list of the same thing previously purchased (or obscurely related), hopeful that I'll want to buy the same thing over and over, again and again. eBay isn't the only one with the idiotic hive mind, it's just one of the more pathetic.

Re:How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop that; come return to life in the TV and phone addict generation where every local news source is identical to the next, and both information and advertising comes at us in waves of 2-second sound clips repeated multiple times verbatim throughout the hour.

Re:How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know you can just turn off the special filtering Google does?

Just enable "Verbatim" in your search results. It gets rids of handy features like spelling corrections, unfortunately.

Re:How about...

[ackthpt]

At some point price customisation or "dynamic" pricing must have become very useful and widespread.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/24/ramasastry.website.prices/

Your search habits fed back into a price just for 'you' at that moment on a sales site.

Alas, that was what I was interested in yesterday or at some time in the past. It's like being in a discussion with someone who keeps bringing up a point that you thought was resolved a while ago, but they think needs more exposure. Imagine how you'd enjoy such a discussion.

Re:How about...

[Vitriol Angst]

Just because I might LIKE to confirm my world view -- is it in societies best interest to automate an "eco chamber" on the internet?

The rights of privacy only extend to our Government -- there's still this gray area with services and corporations. I don't think there is any clearer scenario to say; "we've gone to far." It's one thing to optimize a search -- it's another to play a digital psychologist and give different results to different people based on their profile. Down that path leads people who don't know what the rest of the world thinks. No sense of the "norm" can be had. Every person lives in a bubble where they are a majority.

This leads to extremism. This leads to delusions. This leads to the satisfied staying satisfied, the conspiracy theorist upping the ante, and this is where I start ranting!

This is about the most evil thing a search engine company can do. Congratulations Google.

Re:How about...

[Vitriol Angst]

Are we to a point where instead of "ad words" Google has come to the realization that a company can PAY not to have bad gossip said about them?

This is so much like TV News and commercial advertising. Great. Now the internet is as broken as the TV.

[insert frowny face here]

Taking another bold step ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and "group think" becomes "hive think"

Re:Taking another bold step ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which then becomes "consensus"

Re:Taking another bold step ...

[OolimPhon]

That worked well for the lemmings, didn't it?

Re:Taking another bold step ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lemmings don't deliberately hurl themselves off cliffs, it's a popular myth perpetuated by a staged Disney nature film.

horsedrinkwater

[globaljustin]

I'm with you in wanting to combat "groupthink" but I don't think the technology in TFA will do it

First, who 'scores' the viewpoints? how is one organization weighted against another? ex: Fox News should be in the tabloid/nonsense news category but because Fox is kind of 'grandfathered' in as the 4th national network they are considered 'mainstream'

does this mean a person who goes to motherjones.com alot would get Fox News in this system? who determines that?

i would consider Fox News a 'lower' viewpoint...different sure, but not in any value added way....ignorance isn't an "opposing viewpoint"

2nd, is this going to be an "add-on"? Is the goal to get Google, etc to use it by default?

because people would ignore this tech for the same reason they don't bother seeking out differing viewpoints!!!

unless you force it on them the people who need it won't do it!!!

3rd, if forced upon them, people will inevitably train themselves to ignore the 'suggested alternate viewpoint' box just like they train themselves to ignore Google.com's "sponsored results" or tune out a commercial

To me, this is an example of why academics fail in public policy. They look at a problem and see human opposition as something uncategorizable so instead of understanding that **the problem isn't that people don't get opposing viewpoints...the problem is they willfully choose not to listen**

as they say, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't force them to drink"

this is like holding the horse's face in a water fountain

Re:horsedrinkwater

[Anonymous Coward]

Foxnews is lowbrow or at least overly repetative at times, but I wouldn't call it any "lower" of a viewpoint in the sense that they don't do anything that the other news agencies don't do themselves. Though I am seeing a shift out there where the heavy left biased agencies are starting to ease up and try to release more neutral toned stories to try to get some of the audience that Fox has scooped away from them.

The trick is to teach people how to detect bias and look for the real information behind the bias. Of course a few years back a conservation agency came to the conclusion it was easier to breed stupid fish for restocking programs than to teach fishermen to be smarter. I'm thinking news in politics aren't that much different.

new tool for control of the masses

[Anonymous Coward]

How great is it that someone is coming up with ways to sculpt the opinion of those who will not be swayed?

In a perfect world such a thing would be used to bring enlightenment to the ignorant... I fear it will be used to expose the educated (intellectuals are dangerous) to 'the controversy' (whatever it may be) until they become as confused and stupid as the rest.

Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's "burst the 'filter bubble' that surrounds us with people we like and content that we agree with." To paraphrase Shakespeare, "First thing we do, let's kill all the Karma."

Until then, though, I shall continue to post all such thoughts as...

your friend,

Anonymous Coward

Push vs Pull

[quantaman]

If you search for X, and get confronted with an adversarial opinion, the contrary information is being pushed at you which is threatening and probably responsible for the negative emotional reaction.

If you search for X, see where the adversarial opinions are, but don't actually have to see them when you want to, that's more a pull mechanism and you feel much less threatened as a result.

From what I can tell glancing at the paper their system is very much a pull mechanism which probably lowers the negative response.

I just goggled "BP"

[Anonymous Coward]

and all I got was the nearest gas station.

CNN starting decline, Fox News there already

[globaljustin]

but I wouldn't call it any "lower" of a viewpoint in the sense that they don't do anything that the other news agencies don't do themselves

it is lower...it started that way and sunk ever since

Fox News is about population control, not informing decision makers in an entertaining way as the 4th Estate in a Social Democracy

you're giving them way too much credit

Now, if you said that CNN is getting so bad it has **devolved** into being almost as ignorant as Fox News I would agree...

but there's a key difference! Both Fox and CNN are below standard...the standard hasn't shifted...quality news will always have essential characteristics (which Fox & increasingly CNN dont exhibit)...no...Fox and CNN have gotten worse!!!!

sometimes true, but I for one enjoy REASONED oppos

[raymorris]

I'm sure that sometimes people choose not to read opposing viewpoints. On the other hand, I very much enjoy the opposing viewpoint when it's presented in the style I prefer - with logic, fact based, and backed up with details like relevant numbers. Very often, it's not so much the opposing conclusion that turns me off, but the illogical, purely emotional and often sarcastic presentation.

In the post I'm replying to, for example, I enjoyed the second part, discussing possible reasons, but wouldn't have clicked to read the first part, the pointless Fox News rant. For the same reason, I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh - his name-calling silliness doesn't interest me.

Since you mentioned Fox News, I'll use them as an example. The one show I used to enjoy on Fox was Hannity and Coombes (sp?) precisely because they presented both sides and both were generally calm and logical. Both Hannity, the conservative, and Coombes, the liberal, would at times say things like "good point", or "I hadn't thought of it that way". Some people do enjoy hearing an opposing view; most don't like being made fun of and called "idiots", which is what happens all to often in political discourse. Occasionally I listen to Alan's radio show and I enjoy it, though I rarely agree with him. The one thing that bugs me is that he often yells over people and cuts them off when he sees that they have proven him wrong. He didn't do that on TV, not that I noticed.

Tangential

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you want all views not just opposing views. Some of the most influential things are the off topic items, well off-topic to you, but on-topic to the poster.

Wait what?

[Charliemopps]

Two people who googled the term 'BP.' One received links to investment news about BP while the other received links to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, presumably as a result of some recommendation algorithm.

So I tried this, I wanted to see if the Internet thought I was a democrat or a republican but it just came up with a bunch of links to "Big Penises" I was outraged, and after 15 to 30 min or so of confirming the content I switched search engines. The algorithms are clearly out of control!

Re:Wait what?

[David_Hart]

Two people who googled the term 'BP.' One received links to investment news about BP while the other received links to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, presumably as a result of some recommendation algorithm.

So I tried this, I wanted to see if the Internet thought I was a democrat or a republican but it just came up with a bunch of links to "Big Penises" I was outraged, and after 15 to 30 min or so of confirming the content I switched search engines. The algorithms are clearly out of control!

I just tried this and got... financial news, info about the oil spill on both sides of the coin (i.e. How BP got screwed, What BP doesn't want you to know), and local gas stations. I guess this means that I'm interested in the stock market (which I am, though I don't own BP stock), I'm open to understanding the facts on both sides (i.e. a balanced viewpoint), and I recently searched for gas stations (which I did, but for the local Shell stations not BP).

Re:Wait what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you disabled google storing your search history, so they can't create custom search results.

Bias filter

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is going in the complete opposite direction of the spirt of the article, but I'd rather see more options for filtering. I would like to be able to click on something and have it go away FOREVER or at least not show up for at least 6 months..

There are certain people and stories that just don't deserve more than 5 minutes of coverage. Certain politicians, nearly all actors that speak out politically, and what ever thing that happened 2000miles away that might (never) impact me.

My short list of people and stories that I could live without:

Anything from any personality that visits a 3rd world shit hole dictatorship and blathers on about how it's really "not that bad" and how the dictor and they are BFFs

Sean Penn, Oprah, Al Sharpten, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Jessi Jackson, Harry Reid, Boehner, McCain, Al Gore, The Clintons.

Any politians that uses the pronoun "I" more than twice in a speach.

Any story that get's bent about how the US was founded on "Christian values"

Anyone upset about how they are trying to "destroy Christmas"

Any article that begins with "X things that you should know about Y"

Anything from a politician that has been out of office for more than 10 years

Anything from a politician that has been in public office for more than 10 years

Anything about gay marriage (honnestly I could give an F--- less, let them be misserable just like everyone else, now shut up about it already!)

All news that references anything within 30 days of a tragedy more than, when did it happen, how it happened, and who it happened too. Everytime the news get's the numbers wrong by more than 10% they get a month long ban.

Any politician that tries to make political hay from above mentioned tragedy get's an automatic life time ban

Anything to do with public figures bad behaivor, unless it is really, really funny

Any story that runs on how the poor are getting "poorer". It's like being wet, how much wetter can you get once you've already jumped into a lake? Once you are poor, it's not possible to get any more poorer, because then it would be a story about people dying, which at least in the 1st world, you don't hear about anymore (but somehow they are always getting poorer).

So sure it might cause a little more bias, but it would help shape the news a bit by taking away the agenda from the news agencies and giving it back to the people.

Re:Bias filter

[Anonymous Coward]

What's "get's" a contraction of? "Gets us?"

Blank Slate

[godel_56]

Wiping all your cookies and history in your browser might help a bit, but probably not if you're using Chrome or logged into Google.

Also, the Startpage search engine claims to use Google, but anonymously.

Re: "Organic visualization"

[Animats]

The "organic visualization" thing and its jargon are described in this thesis done at the MIT Media Lab. This is what happens when postmodernists try to improve on Tufte. Some of it is pretentious bullshit. But there may be the genesis of some new phone apps in there.

Here's a good, but unrelated, example of "organic visualization": BitListen This is a little HTML5/JavaScript page which depicts transactions on the Bitcoin block chain. An older example is Muckety. This can be done well, but most attempts in this direction are duds.

Mainstream is MAIN STREAM

[SuperKendall]

Fox News should be in the tabloid/nonsense news category but because Fox is kind of 'grandfathered' in as the 4th national network they are considered 'mainstream'

No, it's mainstream because more people watch it for news than anything.

You may disagree with the ideological bent but you seem to be confusing heavily partisan shows that are on Fox News channel, with the actual news coverage - of which there is a lot.

Fox news covered all of the major news stories as well as any other channel - like trains going off rails, or the Boston Marathon attack.

Meanwhile you appear to give other mainstream outlets with a clear bent the other way a free pass, just because they are inside your preferred bubble.

As for calling them ignorant, people like you think automatically anything you disagree with is based in ignorance - when in fact it's simply a set of choices made from a different point of view that are every bit as rational and informed as the things you prefer.

Your post shows what a dramatic need there is for a way to alternative viewpoints to truly low information self-selecting news consumers such as yourself, like dropping crucial supplies to Berlin via airlift...

nonsense

[globaljustin]

n/t

Definition

[SuperKendall]

How is mainstream, by definition, not the most popular and heavily watched news channels? That is what the "main" group of news watchers are watching - so how can it not be Mainstream?

What is nonsense is ignoring the definition of a word because it results in something you disagree with.

Re:Definition

[Anonymous Coward]

How is mainstream, by definition, not the most popular and heavily watched news channels? That is what the "main" group of news watchers are watching - so how can it not be Mainstream?

What is nonsense is ignoring the definition of a word because it results in something you disagree with.

I won't bother debating with you what is meant by "mainstream". That really is a non-issue. I do think it worth pointing out, though, facts and news should not be decided as if they were popularity contests. Nuff said?

Does not address the real problem

[YoungManKlaus]

Using a tool means that you are already aware of the problem. Lets suffice to say: most people are not, and also may even feel content in their bubble. And that's the real problem.

Opposing or similar views?

[bluegutang]

So this algorithm can figure out what your political viewpoint is, as well as the viewpoint of a news article.

This could be used to show you articles which contradict your viewpoint - or articles which reinforce your viewpoint.

I think the latter is more likely in practice. It's more profitable.

Bubbles are great

[Anonymous Coward]

It keeps me safe within my queer bubbles, where the cisheteropatrhiarchy can be ignored and shunned for the oppressive structure that it is, and I can avoid reading the crap that fills the society that surrounds me. It's a great break from the world, because the bubble bursts as soon as I go outside into society, and its structures push against my very existence.

The mainstream is so vast however, that it does get through the filter sadly.

Exaggerated?

[Chrisq]

I tried various searches in a normal browser window and an incognito window. There was really very little difference. Searching for "Laptop" swapped the order of amazon and curries. Searching for Islam had three appeasement sites at the top in my search and five in the incognito search. Searching for "BP" was exactly the same.

Re:Real Population Control is YOU and friends.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny you should mention that, when the major news outlets are all pulling for Obama and hiding things that would effect Democratic elections.

Hate to break it to you, but Democratic elections were already effected hundreds of years ago.

political blogs/sites do the opposite for $

[Anonymous Coward]

have you ever noticed that all the political websites almost never allow mixing and matching of political talking points from the other side?

You cannot post on a liberal website/forum about being against immigration.

You cannot post on a conservative website/forum about being for universal healthcare.

These sites do not allow mixing of ideologies.

Why?

For money.

They get more viewers and donations and sales when the dominant political talking points being espoused on the site are "pure".

The owners of these sites do this for money.

How existent is this "bubble"?

[supercrisp]

I keep reading about this bubble, but I don't experience in my daily life. I am by political inclination pretty far to the left, but I run into plenty of right-wing opinions, from the libertarians on Slashdot to the Tea Party people on Facebook. I interact with moderate Republicans at work and extreme (God needs to cleanse this nation! Gold Standard!) Republicans in my neighborhood. I have no sense that there's a bubble. I sometimes wish there was a bubble that could filter out all the idiots. Some of the best days of my life were spent hanging out with people of varied and conflicting views who were all intelligent and capable of mutual respect and civility. I'd love a bubble like that. But, again, I don't see any damn bubble in my daily life. Why's it getting broadcast so much? Cui bono?

Re:How existent is this "bubble"?

[internerdj]

I think you misunderstand the bubble. Think advertisment, news article filtering, search results... You are describing self-subscription to things outside your viewpoints. The bubble doesn't keep you from hearing those viewpoints when you choose to go get them; it just subtly confirms its projection of your own viewpoints when you aren't specifically looking for something conservative. For instance, if I'm logged in to Yahoo, it incorrectly labels me Republican and will give me articles slanted to conservative viewpoints. If I were truly conservative and not particularly observant, I'd easily see my viewpoint as backed up by every day news. Same could be said if I were liberal and my bubble were liberal.

Re:How existent is this "bubble"?

[Vitriol Angst]

When you interact with these people do you ever notice that they've got certain "facts" that you do not?

The "bubble" is of information that is unique to the perspective -- or reinforcing that perspective. It can also be called an echo chamber where you hear back what you preach.

The fact that you don't "see" a bubble is due to you not being cocooned in your own rhetoric. Meeting people who disagree and not getting horribly bothered is a sign of good mental health.

/ begin jokes here ////
Personally, I look for the tell-tale rainbow diffraction surrounding some people. Not every bubble is made of Ivory Tower Soap, but when it is, it's very clean and pretty but a mess when it pops.

I want a stronger filter bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some people with blogs and some journalists, who consistently write crap. I want those filtered to the bottom of the news pages. If a friend of mine thinks a website is bullshit, then I don't want to see it on the first page of my google search results. I don't want to see marketing junk, reviews written by shills or poorly made viral videos. Let's be honest, the problem with the web is not that you get too much information that agrees with your opinion, but that you get mediocre results, when everybody and his brother can post his unqualified opinion online.

VERY Pervasive!

[Anonymous Coward]

The bubble is extraordinarily pervasive and it is VERY difficult to break out of without a geographic change(Proxy/VPN).

Try your search with the following URLs and see what you get:
www.google.com
www.google.co.uk
www.bing.com
www.duckduckgo.com

I never log in to Google, always clear cookies and cache and generally try to avoid being tracked. I know that it's pointless because they still use geolocation, IP address, and browser signatures to track me. But I still try to avoid the bubble. Searching for BP gives me company/stock/investment information only! On all of the above search engines. But, searching BP from my hippie sister-in-law's house(on my own device) gives me a first page full of oil spill links.

It's REALLY startling when I travel overseas. Working remotely, I try searching for my "usual stuff", that's always right there at the top of the page. But, at the Caribbean resort, all I get is links to Philippine and Malay centric stuff and not at all what I'm looking for. It has been literally impossible for me to Google certain things that I normally do back home, even with very explicit search terms including location. It's been very annoying sometimes, but it drives home that I'm inside a bubble. It is not at all unlike being inside the Matrix and unable to wake up. You're not even aware that you're inside the bubble/Matrix.

Or

[BBadhedgehog]

You could learn a bit of tolerance and use a search engine that doesn't try to profile you like https://ixquick.com./

Rosie

Won't work

[koan]

Not with the general population, the prejudice is inside them, and even if you slip in an opposing view once they notice that's what's been done you've lost them again.
I would say it's almost impossible to change average adult minds and opinions on things they consider important by having them read articles with opposing views.

Dude, just log out

[HeckRuler]

Seriously, what the hell?

I understand how people can live in an echo chamber and suffer from monoculture. And targeted ads and recommended searches and all that jazz can contribute.

But, seriously? Just log out of google. Run your search. If they don't know who you are, you get an unfiltered search.

Is that so hard?

Google is doing that? => No cookies!

[ArsenneLupin]

I didn't even know that google is doing this. One more reason to kill their cookies often (or not accept them in the first place...)

But how well does the filter filter content?

[whitroth]

I mean, I occasionally read stuff from the other side,,, but a fair bit of it ranges from Michelle Bachman (R-wacko)'s la-la land pronouncements, to a guy on a mailing list I'm on, who's sure that with the Fed printing money, it's devaluating as we type, and oh, yes, we live in a soclaist America....

How does this "bubble-bursting filter" screen out the total crazies, to get *reasonable* contrasting information?

                  mark

Re:Google is doing that? = No cookies!

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't even know that google is doing this. One more reason to kill their cookies often (or not accept them in the first place...)

Yes, indeed. I clean out the cookies quite regularly. You should also think about regularly deleting the macromedia folder. While it does not make you completely anonymous, it helps to stop them from following you around the 'net everywhere you go.

It's still filtering...

[Kazoo the Clown]

They're only recommending things be filtered differently, not that they should not be filtered at all. Useless. I prefer to use an anonymizing search engine, and browsers that do a better job of it would also be a help. The problem is to remove any ability for a site to know anything about the user at all, not to just be "nicer" about how they filter based on what they know.

One conservative to another - Rush doesn't claim

[raymorris]

From one conservative to another, be careful with "news" from Rush if you don't see/read/hear other sources much. Rush will tell you himself he's NOT a journalist, he's a satirist. Sometimes he makes a good point and he's a good source of opinions and entertainment, but not a good source for facts.

Blogs have destroyed public debate.

[bbsalem]

The "Filter Bubble" is in part the product of too much information and a very poor design for public discussion, the blog, which is intentional. Even Slash Dot has the core flaw even though it is a forum, technically. If there is a filter bubble at all, it is in part created by the need for moderation of blogs and the lack of a good mechanism to handle topic drift, sub-threads, and the way to create an interest, even compelling one, for opposing or different views.

I draw on my recall of how on the USENET It was possible to reason with people, present opposing arguments and be persuasive in an area that is at least as contentious as any mentioned in this thread. In fact I debated with Creationists from 1987 to about 1993, and changed a few minds.

The Newsgroup is a superior way to manage the topic. Slash Dot has some of the correct approach by laying out the discussion by topic, but the top down topic hierarchy of USENET is better. The problem with slash dot is that it has too much of the features of a blog and not enough structure so that readers can hone in on the threads that hold interest for them, and these are not necessarily those that they will find agreement as to ideas.

For example, one must filter the large number of posts in some useful way. One way I can suggest is that I would mark to ignore threads with a large number of posts, these are likely to be predictable, facile, and full of short posts. The other is to perfer to read long posts, indicating that some person has made an effort to write, put sentences and paragraphs in some order that is logical, and made an effort to reason. I want to read these posts. These don't exclude posts that I might not agree with, and good. I might want to be exposed to posts that have some meat on them written by people who can think in writing.

I hate tweets. I hate trolls. I dislike mobile. Building public opinion around them is bad for citizenship in a democratic state where discussions need to go to depth and have some grist. I sometime think that marketers and political establishments love mobile, tweets and blogs, because they can control the topic, just like the staff at Slash Dot can control the headlines and the fact that most of the stuff submitted is never seen unless it makes it to the headline. The fact that the topics need to to filtered in that top-down way is a sign that the technology that they are based on fails to give people a voice, and although I don't put slash dot at the top of my list of evil doers, there are plenty of other Internet companies that deserve to be for misusing the medium and not behaving in the service of lively and informative public discussion. The Filter Bubble is a product of misapplication of the technology because there isn't enough structure in blogs and fourms can have structure, but there isn't enough of it to allow for people to manage the flood of information in a useful way, for them.

I know that people on this site love to hate Facebook, but it is important to know why Facebook is not designed to really handle discussion and why that damages people who use it. The reason Facebook is a failure is that it is a blog, and the discussions on it quickly exceed the utility of a blog. What seems to anger Facebook users more is that they can't set a priority for what they see and the lack of structure upsets them at some perfectly normal human tendancies, like topic drift, but unlike a conversation between people, it is harder to wade through the things that don't excite interest, to ignore them.

While I think this post is OT, doesn't address the research finding cited above, I think that it may be beside the point, where the point may be how to inject different points of view in the lineal flow of a blog, the solution is to give the reader much more structure. I found on the USENET that it was possible to inject ideas that people might otherwise ignore if one was cleaver, not choosing obvious emotive words and phrases, and knowing how to make an argument,

I am tempted