Should Social Media Companies Burst Filter Bubbles?
Filter bubbles are the invisible hands which are manipulating our online experience, often without us even knowing or noticing. Even though I learned and was familiar with the concept of filter bubbles a few years ago when personalized searches and filtering started to become a bit more well known, I still often forget that it’s an active, ongoing process. I have very mixed feelings on the topic of filter bubbles, as I see both positive and negative aspects to the practice.
On one hand, I can easily see how filter bubbles create a much more positive user experience. People browse around online and on social media with the goal of finding things which they find interesting, and filter bubbles do a great job at primarily showing you things that you “want to see” — these things that the algorithms notice you search for, the things that you spend lots of time reading, your habits, and essentially part of who you are. These filter bubbles and the recommendation algorithms which operate them are extremely valuable in an economic sense for not only companies which buy advertising space, but also for the user who view the ads. While (like most people), I’m often annoyed by ads on social media, I am a lot less negative about the ones which actually interest me. I can say that I feel a lot less negative about an ad for a movie, TV show, or game that I enjoy compared to an advertisement for a weight loss product designed for women in their 50s.
The other side of filter bubbles has the potential to bring a lot more negativity to our social media platforms, as well as to our society as a whole. When filter bubbles are working well, you are not likely to see many (if any) posts on social media for things which the recommendation algorithm believes you would not be interested in. While this can be seen as a positive thing due to the fact that nobody browses social media to be offended or angry, I believe that experiencing views which do not align with your own are very important. While a large majority of this world believes that the best outcome for society as a whole would be to accept each other and all of our differing views, how is this accomplished when social media filters all of our opposing views away? In my opinion, discussion and debate regarding opposing views and beliefs is a lot more important and constructive than simply pushing these issues under the rug.
Based on that statement alone, it would be expected that I would be in favour of social media platforms completely removing filter bubbles… I don’t believe that this would be the best solution. While I do believe that individuals should have the ability to prevent exposure to things which they disagree on (for example, it would be pretty awful of a vegetarian or vegan constantly got ads and saw posts for things like a steak eating contest), I do not believe in the user of social media being forced into a filter bubble.
Instead of social media platforms bursting the filter bubble, my proposal would be a simple solution of allowing the user to enable or disable the filter, as well as adjusting its “sensitivity” to how much content would be filtered. I think that the use of a filter bubble would still be extremely valuable for advertisers and the advertisements which users are exposed to, I believe the use of a customizable filter would be the best solution for overall post content.
I was astonished to see how polarized social media became during the recent election in the United States, and I was most surprised to see how filter bubbles kept it this way. I would not like to see a future where polarization of issues grows to a greater degree, since that generally results in a lot of negativity in the world. At the same time, I believe that people do have the right to avoid seeing certain topics and views, and that individuals should have the right to determine what may or may not be filtered out of their social media feeds, instead of the social media platform deciding that for them.
