The Filter Bubble: what the internet is hiding from you.book review @elipariser

The Filter Bubble: what the internet is hiding from you…

So our web experience is somewhat customized by our browsing history, social graph and other factors. Should we care that this sort of information-tailoring takes place. Eli Pariser, founder of public policy advocacy group MoveOn.org, explores the topic in The Filter Bubble.

Personally I have a load of issues with the whole concept that the internet is worse than what we already have. We all have filters, as irrespective of the amount of information; we filter, pick and choose things we like, align to self interest, motivate, warm to, find interesting, our background, our traumas and use friends, family, beliefs, faith to determine what we think and listen to. Least we forget the moment in time when this occurs, other distractions, stresses and items competing for our attention.

The concept that the internet filters based on what we view as a filter is better or worse than picking a TV channel, news paper or magazine – which itself has a editors who picks what they like and we pick what we like, it’s a filter.   If we did not pick what we like – we would never have facts to back our opinion. We like confirmation of what we like – the issue is not about the filter but is about understanding who we are and why we think like we do.  This has nothing to do with code!

As per another post on MyDigitalFootprint – I want to know your opinions and not the facts as I can always find a fact to back my opinions – your opinions are your filter.  Google (and all other search engines) also don’t allow you to overly filter and does make serendipity possible. Follow the writings at http://searchengineland.com/ if you want more about this.

What does worry me is that the coder may bias my views based on their interpretation of the algorithm – but this has nothing to do with the Internet.