We’re all aware how the Internet revolutionised the way we access and distribute information. It created a new era of democratised media where everyone can participate.
Yet, there are heated discussions, lead by Eli Pariser that we are actually moving in the opposite direction!
‘My Internet’ is not ‘your Internet’
We believe that the Internet is a place that connects us with all information available. But in reality there are ‘intermediaries’ selecting the content we see. I am not talking about Internet censorship which we have seen in Egypt and Lybia; I am referring to web algorithms that surround us almost everywhere online.
We don’t all see the same Internet anymore, we surf our own Internet – a feed of personalised information that reflects what each of us is supposedly interested in. The news and search results I receive may differ significantly from friends and colleagues.
Most online outlets - search engines, shipping sites and social media platforms - create a profile of who we are and what we look. They then use this data to present us with only the information they think is relevant to us.
Behind the scene editing – does the Internet really know us?
It sounds like a good deal for everyone – Google and Facebook increase ad click rates and we get information we want. But it’s not as simple as that.
The big problem is that we cannot decide what gets through our filter and what is hidden - Yahoo, Google, and Facebook are now deciding that for us. Recently the filtering technology started to be used by newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times but most people are not aware that the filtering is happening at all.
More importantly, we don’t know what is ‘edited out’. This puts us in a situation where the Internet shows us what it thinks we want to see, and not necessarily what we need to see. We are fed information that goes down well and doesn’t contradict us – based on what we normally look at.
Profiling algorithms often focus on what we click at first. So, throwaway clicks on lunchtime gossip stories will be pushed at the expense of more important political issues such as famine in Somalia which might not receive a lot of clicks and likes. Hence it’s difficult for these stories to penetrate the filter mechanism.
Distorted view?
The question is what the long term impact of this ‘behind the scenes editing’ is. Will it leave us with a distorted view of the world?
Filtering is fairly harmless when it only edits out commercial information from our search results. But as Eli Pariser puts it, it has a more substantial impact: ‘Mark Zuckerberg once told colleagues that “a squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.” Focusing on the most personally relevant news — the squirrel — is a great business strategy. But it leaves us staring at our front yard instead of reading about suffering, genocide and revolution.’
See for yourself if the profile Google has created of yourself is accurate. And take a few minutes to watch Eli Pariser’s speech – its eye opening.