Popping the Filter Bubble
By Alan Nero
In his 2011 TED Talk, Eli Pariser, MoveOn.Org's Board President and Upworthy’s Chief Executive, thoroughly addressed the issue of “Filter Bubbles”; the phenomenon experienced by every user of the Google search engine. Based on geographic location, IP address, search history, and browsing habits, the list of search results is uniquely tailored to every person. While this sounds relatively benign, even helpful, on a superficial level, the result is ultimately harmful.
Filtering search results builds dense walls of selective news and information. These barriers isolate users from helpful information, important world events, and facts necessary to comprehend the intricate issues faced by our society. Worse still, Filter Bubbles are not isolated to search engines.
According to the 2018 Pew Research Center Survey, social media is the preferred medium through which the majority of citizens obtain their news. Unfortunately, these new age gatekeepers leave citizens and journalists stunted with personalization algorithms, similar to those used by search engines. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram supply their users with personally-tailored newsfeeds.
Personal customization is an overall appealing idea. However, automatically curating the newsfeeds of every individual takes the power of choice out of users’ hands and places them in echo chambers of personalized bias. Filter bubbles segregate users from the diversity of available reports and perspectives that can encourage healthy disagreement and debate; two vital facets of functional society.
Isolating citizens from challenging viewpoints, and an equitable array of news coverage leads to two particularly dangerous outcomes:
One, people are prevented from learning new information and developing a more comprehensive understanding of the world around them.
Two, in-depth journalism that can potentially effect change in our society is phased out from the purview of entire swaths of the population, facilitated by social media algorithms that encourage overindulgence in personal bias.
Focusing on providing users with a positive experience is a sound business principle. But platforms such as Facebook have taken on a greater level of responsibility than they had perhaps anticipated. By serving as portals for news media, social media have adopted the obligation to provide their account users with an impartial selection of reportage. Filtering are negligent practices that harm society as a whole by hindering the dissemination of ideas, constructive discussions, and valuable perspectives.
While the damage may not be permanent, reputable journalists and community members alike will be mired in confusion and suspicion so long as social media platforms continue their practices of curating information for each user.
Perhaps social media platforms will one day divine a means to balance their efforts to preserve user experience with delivering balanced newsfeeds. Until then, web users must be wary that they are not always getting the whole story.
