In his TED talk, Eli Pariser described a “filter bubble” as, “your own personal, unique universe of information that you live in online.” I believe that filter bubbles are a huge problem, because the companies who are collecting data about our internet usage are now becoming the “gatekeepers” of the content that we see online. Based on the websites we visit, what we Google, or what we like on Facebook, the internet is becoming increasingly more personalized to show us what it thinks we want to see. We are now losing control of the information and news stories that we see online, and we are losing a sense of mainstream media. Everyone’s screens are personalized now, but it is an algorithm that is choosing our news for us.While filter bubbles might seem helpful because you are being shown news that is based off your internet data, they are actually dangerous because you don’t have control over what you see on your screen, so you have no idea what information has been edited out. Filter bubbles can cause users to have significantly less contact with contradicting viewpoints, causing the user to become intellectually isolated. Also, Filter bubbles do not accurately represent what is going on around the world, and don’t allow internet users to be exposed to opinions that are different than their own.
I believe that companies that are using filter bubbles, need to give us some control, so that we can decide what gets through and what doesn’t. The internet was created to introduce us to new ideas and new people, not to leave us all isolated from one another.
Works Cited
Beware online "filter bubbles"". Perf. Eli Pariser. Ted.com. N.p., 2011. Web. 23 July 2017. <https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles/up-next>.
Emily, I agree with your critique about Eli Pariser's TED talk. Filter bubbles are not allowing Internet users to be exposed to a large variety of opinions and perspectives. There is a plethora of political news articles available to users across the country, but the "algorithm" that you mentioned prevents citizens from learning new perspectives about politics. If some citizens in communities don't have the personal resources to learn about our United States government through family or community, the Internet may be their only resource of political knowledge. If the search engines of Internet sites eliminate political news from articles and editorials that have all different political ideologies, then they may not retrieve the knowledge they need to formulate their own opinions about public policy and other social issues. As a result, citizens do not have enough political knowledge to vote and become politically engaged.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to your discussion about Pariser's opinions, I thought the topics you covered were relevant to the video and very concise. You provided pros and cons to the recent addition of filter bubbles. You discussed the positive of filter bubbles, in which they provide "news based off of your Internet data." But contrasted this view by elaborating on the lack of "contradicting viewpoints" and a loss of "sense of mainstream media." Most importantly, I was able to grasp a good idea of the issues of filter bubbles, and how, as a citizen, I can look for more contradicting opinions other than what is in my own "filter bubble."