This is a copy of a piece I’ve written for the December 2011 issue of Service Contractor [PDF page 14], the magazine of Professional Services Council in the United States. All links are at the end of the article. *************
On May 16, 2011, Jeremy Hunt, U.K. secretary of state for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, asked
citizens and those who work in fixed or mobile communications, television, radio, online publishing, video games, and other digital and creative content industries for responses to an open letter reviewing communications in the digital age. The open letter contained a series of questions aimed at gathering business and citizen ideas “to help frame the Government’s initial approach to deregulation and maximize the communications industry’s contribution to economic growth.” Read more
In it, Pariser explores how the personalisation of the web – be it on Facebook, Google or elsewhere – is creating ‘filter bubbles’. Whilst the web promised us freedom from media gatekeepers, he believes that in reality there has been a passing of a torch, “From human gate keepers to algorithmic ones”.
“Most of us assume that when we google a term, we all see the same results – the ones that the company’s famous Page Rank algorithm suggests are the most authoritative based on other pages’ links. But since December 2009, this is no longer true. Now you get the result that Google’s algorithm suggests is best for you in particular – and someone else may see something entirely different. In other words, there is no standard Google any more.”
Pariser outlines why this may be a problem for society and democracy, as the web feeds us what it thinks we should know, against what we are potentially really looking for, or perhaps just need to know.
“[...] you don’t choose to enter the bubble. When you turn on Fox News or read The New Statesman, you’re making a decision about what kind of filter to use to make sense of the world. It’s an active process, and like putting on a pair of tinted glasses, you can guess how the editors’ leaning shapes your perception. You don’t make the same kind of choice with personalised filters. They come to you – and because they drive up profits for the websites that use them, they’ll become harder and harder to avoid.”
These ideas take notions of like-mindedness, such as research by Cass Sunstein, a step further, and more out of our control. Whilst many of us might actively try to follow, search for and discover ideas outside of our comfort zone, unwittingly these attempts may be in vain.
