Ever wondered why one moment you are searching a recipe for lunch and the next moment you are bombarded with advertisements of food delivery apps ?
This happens because website algorithms selectively filter information using over 57 parameters like search history ,cookie data ,past click behaviour, personal information , et cetera to personally tailor your internet search results.
At first glance personalized search results might seem harmless, rather convenient but a closer look shows that they lead to a state of intellectual isolation termed as ‘Filter Bubble’ as coined by internet activist Eli Pariser.Filter Bubbles effectively isolate the user into their own cultural and ideological bubbles showing results and news items which confirm only to their own personal opinion on a subject, missing out the big picture.
Filter Bubbles also lead to the formation of ‘Echo Chambers’ wherein similar ideas are repeated multiple times reinforcing them rigidly in the minds of the readers and eliminating out any opposite views which might try to explain other perspectives and the bigger picture.
Before the advent of the internet, this job of ‘filtering out’ or ‘gate keeping’ was done by journalists and editors. The arrival of internet meant that the information of the whole world was at the tip of your finger. But the algorithms, unlike journalists lack ethics, morals and conscience. And unaware of the constant censoring search engines do to provide personalized results, people accept what is being shown to them as the whole truth , missing out the big picture.
A report in the Guardian states that over 60 percent people using social media are unaware of any sort of curation done by internet algorithms. This invisible curation traps people in their own bubble of autopropoganda indoctrining them with their own ideas and leaving no space for dissent and disagreement. This could be one of the reasons why people nowadays are getting so intolerant and rigid on their own opinions.
A study conducted by DuckDuckGo in the year 2012 shows how pervasive the problem of filter bubbles is and how it has adverse effects on the psyche of people by ideologically isolating them. During the 2012 elections in the United States , a Wall Street Journal examination found that the search engine often customizes the results of people who have recently searched for “Obama”—but not those who have recently searched for “Romney. It is believed that the 2016 presidential elections were also influenced by filter bubbles as evident by the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Though it seems inescapable, individuals can counter this problem brought forth by Filter Bubbles by using search engines like Qwant,Disconnect,Searx,DuckDuckGo, etc which lack individual personalization .One can also consciously seek out contrasting views to try to get the bigger picture about an issue .It is high time now that Media houses act on this problem and moderate the personalization and provide more wholesome and holistic results which create a better understanding.
By Aakanksha Chaturvedi.
Sources-
https://spreadprivacy.com/
https://www.google.com/