THE FILTER BUBBLE

What the Internet Is Hiding from YouEli Pariser

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” – Marshall

McLuhan, media theorist

“A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa” – Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder.

A Global Lobotomy?

There has been a radical shift since the heady early days when the Internet was a wonderland of discovery and anonymity.The digital world is becoming increasingly tailored and personalized for each particular individual.

Without knowing it, we may be giving ourselves a kind of global lobotomy instead.

Search engines now show different results to different people.

Results are tailored to who you are,

based on your search history

and your click history.

Since you often click on things you agree with,

you keep getting more and more of what you already agree with,

Search for Barack Obama

which means other stuff gets demoted (effectively filtered).

This raises the question: what are you missing?

(amazon review of the book below)

In other words, you are living in a Filter Bubble

that promotes things it thinks you'll like,

and demotes (effectively filters) out some of the rest,

which may limit your exposure to opposing information.

The Filter Bubble

The Internet filters look at things you’ve done, or the things people like you do, and tries to extrapolate. They are predicting engines, constantly creating and refining a theory of who you are and what you’ll do and want next.

Personalization involves using technology to accommodate the differences between individuals. Web pages are personalized based on the characteristics (interests, social category, context, … items purchased or pages viewed and also data such as ratings or preferences).

Personalization

Serendipity (happy accident) The manner in which some of the most

important discoveries were arrived at reminds one more of a sleepwalker’s performance than an electronic brain’s. – Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers

Innovation requires serendipity.

The Race for Relevance

Amazon.com – the first to harness the power of relevance, becoming the first online with personalization built in, leading that company to industry dominance.

Google

Google took this concept of personalization and applied it to the whole internet. Using algorithms to sort through sites on the web.

By 2008, Google had several patents for personalization algorithms.

In Dec 2009 Google Introduced“Personalized search for everyone”.

Facebook

Facebook Newsfeed – gives you a personalized newsletter of sorts every day.

Facebook now has the largest photo collection in the world.

In 2010, Facebook rolled out “Facebook Everywhere” – in which the aim is to bring Facebook personalization to million of sites that currently lack it.

Insert social plugin pic

“If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” – Andrew Lewis, Metafilter

Your behaviour is now a commodity

Based on these powerful algorithms and personalization techniques the whole web can become a platform for the likes of Facebook and Google.

$$$$$$

Increased personalization is primarily a simple business strategy: The more personally relevant their information offerings are, the more ads they can sell, and the more likely you are to buy the products they’re offering.

The User is the Content

“ The technology will be so good, it will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not been in some sense tailored for them”. – Eric Schmidt, Google CEO.

If traffic ends up guiding coverage, will news media choose not to pursue some important stories because they’re ‘dull’?”

The You Loop “I believe this is the quest for what a personal computer

really is. It is to capture one’s entire life” – Gordon Bell.

“You have one identity … Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“People don’t want something targeted to the whole world – they want something that reflects what they want to see and know,” Faceboo,k COO, Cheryl Sandberg.

A New Middleman

The word media comes from the Latin “middle layer”. Like a lens it sits between us and the world, a very powerful position.

The new mediators – the new gatekeepers are invisible.

Redistribution of Information Power

If “knowledge is power”, then assymetries in

knowledge are assymetries in power.

Hello World!

Like goldfish that grow only large enough for the tank they’re in, we’re contextual beings: how we behave is dictated in part by the shape of our environments.

The environments of Google and Facebook may not be made of glass, but they regulate our behaviour just as effectively.

What you Want, Whether You Want It or Not

Advertars: a virtual being with a commercial purpose (may want to “friend” you on Facebook).

Personalized “augmented reality”.

Minority Report-style ads have been rolled out in Tokyo subway stations.

So how to pop the Filter Bubble?

Possible solutions

What Governments and Citizens Can Do

Increase Regulation?

• You should know who has your personal data, what data they have, and how it’s used.

• You should be able to prevent information collected about you for one purpose from being used by others.

• You should be able to correct inaccurate information about you.

• Your data should be secure.

Practical things you can doDuckDuckGo – search engine

Ccleaner – Cookie CleanerTor – platform that uses proxy servers