Hate to burst your bubble, but…
Were you sheltered as a child? Worried the big, scary internet will try to present you with ideologies and opinions far different from your own? Fear no longer! Introducing the latest craze in the online world, the Filter Bubble.
That’s how I imagine this formula for ignorance has been pitched to social media head honchos for the past decade. The filter bubble presents an interesting issue between ethical practice and the business of social media. Using their algorithms, social media coders enable users to receive a feed and trends relative to both their interests and beliefs; this could of course extend from more “unimportant” issues like the world of Hollywood all the way into the political sphere, a world where the decisions affect us all regardless of our standpoints.
The big controversy lies in the dollars and cents of social media. These companies have to make money somehow, and it’s not by us signing up for them. How long we stay on a given site can greatly impact their revenue streams. If only they could keep us online longer, they could show this to advertisers to sell them ad space for ridiculous amounts of money. They want to make our bounce rate take as long as possible for their own gain.
Is there anything wrong with social media companies being concerned with their profitability? Absolutely not. At the end of the day, these are businesses with stakeholders to please, with employees to pay, and with CEOs who for some reason need bigger and bigger raises (but that’s a whole other issue). The big problem comes when business interferes with ethics, when ideally the two would collaborate. You would hope that there would be a sense of corporate social responsibility involved in the decisions that these companies make.
We the consumers are stakeholders too. Should we be happy with what we’re getting? I don’t think so. The filter bubble may exist to keep us online, but it also keeps us grossly uninformed. Spending hours and hours on your social media platforms reading the same stuff about your already-held viewpoints doesn’t make you a bigger person. How are we to grow if we shelter ourselves from opinions that make us uncomfortable, that we disagree with, that seem “wrong”? Answer — we don’t. But how much do we truly care? I guess it all comes down to whether or not we put the onus on us, the consumers, or them, the corporations. Are we responsible for our own betterment, or do these platforms owe it to the public to look beyond their quarterly growth and to think of society as a whole?
In my opinion, it’s us. Although it would be nice if companies really cared about the “right thing to do,” that might be a little much to ask of them when we know good and well what their bottom line is. I wish it could be different. Not to act all high and mighty (after all, I primarily use social media for meme consumption), but social media should be more than mindless. We are capable of having uncomfortable but informative conversations online; I see them all the time. However, if we’re barred from getting the whole truth, how can these conversations be anything more than an unintelligible series of angry Facebook comments-section fights where no one gives in?
We can use these platforms to learn and grow, instead of being compliant users. The key, however, is active and critical thought. If the filter bubble exists, we must take it upon ourselves to learn and be informed. If your feed gives you one perspective, go out and search for another. If Google filter-bubbles you (can I make that a verb?), go beyond the first page of results. Ask around. WATCH THE NEWS. See that other people exist. See that they’re our neighbours, our friends, and they’re just as entitled to their opinion as you are.
Let’s start to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. #nofilter
