Response to Eli Praiser: beware online “filter bubbles”

Eli Praiser gave a Ted Talk about “filter bubbles” and how they are negatively impacting our lives online. He found this shifting of how information flowed over the internet when he noticed that his conservative friends’  links disappeared from his Facebook. He realized he had been clicking on the liberal links more, and without consulting him about it, Facebook edited out his conservative friend’s links. This is true for other sites as well, including Google, who uses 57 different signals to personalize your query results. Your filter bubble is all of your personalized filters put together, to create your own “personal, unique universe of information that you live in online.” Essentially, our searches are loaded with information junk food because we usually click on what interests us first, not the “vegetables” that give us a balanced information diet. What you click on first becomes your bubble and blocks out everything else.

Praiser is trying to educate internet users about how these “filter bubbles” are not as great as some may initially think. His Ted Talk and book were filmed and published in 2011 (New York) and are still relevant now. All internet users should be aware of the filter bubbles so they know that they may not be getting the whole search. The main idea is that we need the web leaders to make sure that we get a say in what gets filtered so that we can be introduced to new ideas and different perspectives, rather than be isolated in our own information junk food. Praiser’s goal was to inform us about filter bubbles, because many do not know about them. It’s important to know how the internet shields you from valuable information just based on what you previously clicked on. The filter bubble takes away the opportunity for chance encounters that bring insight and learning. He wants people to understand the issue and pass it on, to hopefully start some kind of change.

I thought this Ted Talk, along with the introduction from his book were really eye-opening. I knew that sites tailored certain things based on your interests because I always see ads on Facebook from stores that I bought things from online. I never knew that everyone’s search on Google was different or that so many companies tailor their search to your previous clicks. I thought that everyone had the same page if they searched the same word on Google, so it was crazy and interesting to learn about this topic. I appreciated that Praiser realized how the filter bubbles aren’t a positive thing and informed us about the negative aspect of it. I also liked how he compared our searches to desserts and vegetables because that definitely helped me understand the concept better. Even though this was back in 2011, I can see that it is definitely still relevant now because of my experiences with internet ads. I agree that the filter bubble isn’t a good thing and that we should be cautious of it if we want to keep the internet’s role in our lives a positive one. I would ask Praiser who the new gatekeepers should be that take responsibility for the codes/algorithms and how we should go about avoiding the filter bubble as much as possible at the time being. I think it will take a while for any real change to happen, so I think we should all find a way to truly beware of our filter bubbles.