Week 3 - Response to Content

How Google algorithms change the way we receive information.
Inspired by the "Mind control and the internet" article by Sue Halpern.

After reading this article it definitely made me think twice about jumping onto Google or my Gmail account or even Facebook. It made me think twice because of the scary reality of what has been named by Eli Pariser as the "filter bubble".
The filter bubble is simply, well imagine your in a bubble and you have major news and web sites like Yahoo news, Facebook, Twitter, CNN etc on the outside of the bubble, basically sending through information into your bubble each time you search for something or get/want an 'update'.

Another example is what Pariser (2011) mentions in his YouTube clip below, where he had two of his friends do a Google search on 'Egypt' and send him the screenshot of results. The interesting part was that one friend had the latest headlines come up in the search, whereas the other friend had holiday websites appear in the whole of page 1 of his Google search - nothing to do with the crisis that was happening at the time.

Pariser (2011) went on to say because of the algorithms set up by Google they (algorithms) are not sophisticated enough to give ethical information and are designed to be 'personalised' for each and every individual. This meaning that instead of everyone getting the same search results we all get different results based on a number of variables including our location, the computer we are using, the browser we are using, and what we have clicked on previously.

Enter the filter bubble.

Pariser (2011) has gone on to say that the internet is no longer the way it was, imagine a big wide open forum used for sharing and linking people and information together around the world. Whereas now, picture a small funnel filtering information into each and every one of our computers so that when each individual person searches a particular topic, they will now get out of it what the 'internet' alorithims think they want to know rather than what they have the right to know/see.


Don't get me wrong I believe the internet is an extremely useful source of information, a way of connecting to others and the way of the future. I am still though, a little uneasy about just how far it's going to go before we lose sight of the 'real world' and just accept that what is being fed to us will suffice.

References:
1) Parisier, E 2011, Beware: Online filter bubbles, viewed 13 August 2011,
<http://youtu.be/B8ofWFx525s>

2) Maiorana, M 2011, What's the internet hiding? Lets find out, viewed 27 August 2011,
http://www.thefilterbubble.com/category/algorithms-2