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

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.

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...