The real Filter Bubble debate

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/06/the-real-filter-bubble-debate.html

by joshuacc • 15 years ago

35 14 15 years ago

jerf• 15 years ago

The real debate is, who gets to decide what the filter is? We have to have one, nobody can handle the full flood of data, so it's not a matter of whether we have one, it's who gets to control it.

Do you let the user control it? That's great philosophically, but I think in practice it will be hardly any different than search engines just intelligently twiddling the settings based on your actions. On the other hand, pretty much any answer other than the user creates even larger problems with conflicts of interest.

Eli Pariser did a great job of selling the idea that we should be exposed to true diversity, but I still fear that in practice the truly gut, visceral reaction that people have to this is that people can end up in $NOT_MY_IDEOLOGY bubbles, and what they really want is going to be less about diversity and more about making sure that people's bubbles put more of $MY_IDEOLOGY into everybody's bubble (as $MY_IDEOLOGY is obviously the one true correct ideology and therefore deserving of special treatment). There are a lot more people claiming to value diversity than there are people who truly want people to be exposed to the best arguments against $MY_IDEOLOGY there is.

Unseelie• 15 years ago

I'm not convinced that's a default state of people. We may train ourselves to be that way, and we may have some level of inclination to such..

I'm wondering if we might not be better off if fairly frequently we do get exposed to the best arguments against $MY_IDEOLOGY, and not get trained into the idea that $MY_IDEOLOGY is the one true correct ideology.

Beyond such, being dropped into a bunch of other bubbles will probably force you to come up with stronger arguments for your ideology, which is, all in all, growth and arguably a good thing.

loup-vaillant• 15 years ago

As far as I know it is the default state for many many people. The only clear exceptions I can think of is relativism. Even then, people tend to be relativists about particular subjects only (champions are politics and religion, where "respect" for the other's view is paramount, and plain telling them they are mistaken is often interpreted as offensive and intolerant).

The rest of the time, we just have a very hard time abandoning our beliefs. (I know It'd be hard for me to admit that functional programming is not superior to class based programming most of the time, even in the face of compelling evidence. I'd be likely to search for an escape hatch first.) It's truth that's important, but, probably because of the mind projection fallacy, we mistake our beliefs for truth, and therefore holds our current beliefs dear, which is rather silly when you think about it.

By the way, if being dropped in other bubbles compels you to find stronger arguments for your own, beware that those stronger arguments may actually be unjustified rationalizations. That would be a bad thing. Better change your mind in that case.

Fortunately you can train: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_M...

voidfiles• 15 years ago

I have always thought that the best way to prevent the filter bubble was to expand your own circle of influence. I don't ever want to rely on any algorithm to provide 100% of the picture. If you build an info gather apparatus that from time to time can challenge your ideas then you will be better off.

I agree with your point that it's a false dichotomy, especially because you can always just use your own will to find opinions outside the bubble.

jannes• 15 years ago

Is it really safe to assume that no filtering or personalization leads to diverse results? Isn't it more likely that unfiltered search results just put you in the mainstream bubble?

I think the problem is the usage of the word "bubble" in this context. It doesn't make sense.

mgl2• 15 years ago

Do you really see a real problem here?

Closed-minded people want to get results that are accurate to their opinions, preferences, etc. The best way to make them satisfied is to re-use their search/browsing history and return results biased toward them. There is nothing wrong with that, we all do that in normal life to some point choosing people, events and places similar to us.

Open-minded people will always look for alternatives, they will like to see options, thus still looking for valuable information but according to different points of view. And this is why there are different newspapers on the market - some of them present the one and only vision of reality, others prefer to start a discussion about the real meaning of the facts.

And in the same way different search and recommendation engines will be enriched with such options, so we can have a choice. Otherwise we will leave looking for a service that does.

Wilduck2• 15 years ago

I agree that there are probably market forces at play here. Duck Duck Go definitely fills a niche.

However, I disagree with your distinction between open and closed minded individuals. I think both styles are useful, but the first is for times when you're already informed and know what you're looking for, and the second for when you're uninformed and want a diversity of results.

icedpulleys2• 15 years ago

I've yet to hear someone define what useful, diverse set of results is that has been filtered from them; they simply state that the sites that they see on Google, FB, et al. are filtered and that some other filtered pages could hypothetically be useful.

What diverse results do you want to see that you aren't seeing now, and how could they potentially be useful?

This is an easy experiment. Submit a google query while logged in, and open an incognito Chrome window and submit the same query there. Compare the search results. What would have been helpful that you didn't see in your filter "bubble"?

laglad• 15 years ago

I would like a visible toggle switch for the filter. It's ok to filter stuff out but I'd like to know what the generic result looks like. Of course, that might be a philosophical mess because what exactly is the right algorithmic balance? Still, the toggle would create awareness about the extent of the information filter. The real danger of a filter is people thinking that their version of the news is the best version.

Random aside: one of the most annoying happenstances of the modern interweb is the prevalence of those ads that follow you around especially because they're really poor at being relevant.

mgl2• 15 years ago

Isn't it that simple like pausing and clearing your web history in google? https://www.google.com/history/

FilterJoe• 15 years ago

Can already toggle by opening up a second browser that you never use (and you clear cookies and history after each use). You'll still get geographic filtering but little else. Webmasters do this all the time when checking out how well individual pages rank for various keywords.

Of course, your idea of a visible toggle switch is far more user friendly.

EDIT: added "history"

icedpulleys2• 15 years ago

Open an incognito window in Chrome, don't log in to your google account, and search there.

Wilduck2• 15 years ago

I would actually be rather upset if my filter bubble went away. More than 50% of the time I search for something on Google, I'm actually just looking for the relevant wikipedia page.

When I'm searching for something code related, I always want stackoverflow to be at the top.

Most of the time, when I do a google search, I have a destination in mind, and am simply using google to get there. The only time that I really want diversity is when I'm searching for something in a completely new subject matter. This happens relatively rarely.

mtogo• 15 years ago

FWIW, duckduckgo has a feature that allows you to jump to any site from your search bar.

Searching for '!so Hello, world' will pull up a stackoverflow search for 'Hello, world', and searching for '!w Hello, World' will pull up the relevant Wikipedia page.

The real Filter Bubble debate

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