Re: Filter Bubbles

Eli Pariser’s Ted Talk “Beware Online ‘Filter Bubbles”” was so interesting to me because I have never really thought about how google and other sites filter out material to fit to my interest. When you conduct a google search I think most people assume that you are just getting the information that comes up based on they key words that you type in but though out this course I am realizing more and more that this is absolutely not the case. It is crazy to me that she I searched, for example, the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict that I could potentially get information that is biased based on articles and searches that I had done before. And it is not just google searches. Netflix was a funny example because if you look at my Netflix queue it 100% consists of chick-flick movie and TV suggestions given the history of my viewings. But if another genre is never suggested to me I am less likely to ever watch it and more likely to just continue watching more of the same suggested genre. Although Netflix is a relatively less life-affecting example it is a good example because it helps me understand how google would do the same type of filtering. While filtering can be really helpful under some circumstances, I agree with Pariser in that it is also potentially dangerous. The whole purpose of the internet is to introduce us to a wide range of different opinions and if it does not do that then it is not doing us a favor, it is sheltering us from information that maybe we don’t want to hear but we need to hear.