Online Filter Bubbles, or why the internet is becoming a circlejerk.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html

I think he brings up some very salient points on how personalization online can lead to less tolerance. People are associating less and less with others that challenge their point of view, and the custom tailoring of news feeds and search engines (they all do it, so don't whine about Google here) tend to only show people what they want to see.

The result? The internet is becoming a circlejerk/hugbox, and most of us probably don't even realize it. We're seeing more things that confirm our views, and that's probably part of what's causing the ridiculous ideology wars.

edited 10th Aug '12 5:05:50 PM by JosefBugman

^ Did you watch the video? It raises some really good points. And it's not about what you seek out - it's what you are allowed to see.

I knew about the Google thing already, but not the others. The Facebook one, in particular, was pretty creepy.

edited 10th Aug '12 5:05:42 PM by JosefBugman

Is... is this finally my chance to plug Duck Duck Go? Because Duck Duck Go doesn't bubble or even track your history, and if it doesn't come up with the answer you seek, you can use it to filter through Google and Bing while remaining completely untracked. Also, there's a cool informational blurb in a red box regarding anything you search for - generally from Wikipedia, but there are a lot of neat syntactical hacks you can use for other sources.

Here it is, intuitively enough.

I haven't really noticed this phenomenon, then again I deliberately seek out opposing viewpoints to use as a sounding board for my own.

I didn't know about the Google thing at all, and I'm very disturbed by it.

edited 5th Aug '11 5:30:23 PM by silver2195

Oh, totally. My nights are spent plugging in one lunatic search after another.

Did you find someone who opposed gay marriage because gay couples won't become wage slaves to their five children?

Sorry, sorry. Just can't get over that one.

I can see you and I need to go shoot ducks together and chitchat about politics.

Was that a Dick Cheney joke? I thought he was shooting quails?

Seriously, I'm not sure what you mean there.

Christ, lighten up. And PM me if you want to dredge up old thread topics.

I'm light.

Carry on, everyone.

@Josef: It's not just getting news from the internet. It's also affecting what shows up on your search results.

He did a comparison of two different people's search results on "Egypt". One of them came up with a bunch of opinion pieces and news articles, the other advertised vacations.

I suppose this was especially eye-opening for me, since we don't have anything remotely resembling accurate and unbiased news over here, so I was following stories via the internet because it was easier to get both sides to the story.

Where's "over here"?

In the US.

Josef, the problem is that the Internet is the best of a series of bad media, at least in the United States. For example, it may cover a topic I'm interested in at the local level in a biased way, but at least they cover the issue.

Really? I'd say The Washington Post, at least, is a pretty reliable news source.

The Washington Post is the one whose stories are, like, two Tweets long, isn't it? (Or am I thinking of USA Today?) At any rate, every news agency has not only a reporting bias, but also a selection bias. If you read articles both official and amateur from both sides of an issue, you get a much better sense of that issue, and a much better chance of knowing the issue exists, than if you just watch your favorite TV network's take on it. But the Google programming apparently considers that an inconvenience toward you.

Duck Duck Go, people. Seriously.

Some are worse than others. The big problem is that even the better newspapers can only cover so many events (for example, the best in unbiased news is generally local events on a nightly news station, but they only cover local events).

edited 5th Aug '11 6:49:12 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

Yeah, you're thinking of USA Today. But I agree that no news source makes a good sole news source.

Huh. That's kinda scary, but if you think about it, when you do a Google search, aren't you typically looking for a specific thing, instead of just clicking randomly on the first thing that pops up? If you want to find a news story, you'll keep looking until you find a news story, probably from a website you like, and if you're looking for a hotel room, you'll keep looking until you find a hotel room. So doesn't it matter more that people take responsibility and search for important news and opposing viewpoints themselves?

The Facebook thing really really creeps me out though, but Facebook and social networking sites creep me out already, so it doesn't change my opinion much.

Just wondering though, did anyone try doing a Google search on Egypt? I got an Egypt government site, Wikipedia, two news stories about the protests in Egypt, something abut Egypt on the CIA website, Egypt Google maps, an Egyptian tourism ad, and a British website about ancient Egypt, all visible without scrolling down.

Egypt:

Egypt State Information Service (sis.gov.eg)

Egypt — Wikipedia article (wikipedia.org)

Egypt News: Revolution and Aftermath (nytimes.com)

Egypt CIA world factbook page: (cia.gov)

Hm, that seems like a decent mix to me. :/

Same for me.

Wasn't this the plot of metal gear soild 2: sons of liberty?