Show HN: A Chrome extension to burst your filter bubble | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A Chrome extension to burst your filter bubble

chrome.google.com

26 pointsfifloufo8 comments

I wish there was something to break me out of my YT filter bubble. I feel like I've watched / decided to skip every single one of the videos YT home page recommends me and would like some fresher content.

It is so bad now that it won't even show me content from my subscriptions if I haven't watched those specific channels in a while - For several months last year, I was really into photography channels and my feed was just gear reviews, photo technique videos and such. Now I barely see them anymore and I have to hunt down people I like / subscribed to and watch their videos manually. Serendipity is totally lost.

This should be a simpler problem than getting balanced news, anyone have any tips on how to solve it?

I came across [1] some weeks ago, which (although didn't give me the flexibility to choose my topic), did fulfill my need to look at the view from both sides on, presumably, the hottest topic of the day.

They have a "curation"-method to selecting the articles to show. I am curious as to if this extension uses pre-selected websites (e.g. WSJ will always show the Right-leaning view), or is there something smarter than that

[1]: https://www.theflipside.io/

Interesting, it reminds me a of Knowhere News. Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for this, looks interesting!

Ooh, An extension revolving around biases and psychology! Always in for it.

I literally wrote an article on how so much data on internet affects our mind and sometimes, can make us biased.

Such tool, like your extension, can be very helpful.

Does your article address strategies for mitigating this bias? I, as a politically left leaning person, often recognize my biases but I have difficulty absorbing the "other side" of data, notably because it feels like 90% of the internet is either lies, stretches, or opinion pieces. So my strategy to mitigate my bias is to look up counter information, but I struggle to find anything of real value.

Hell, I even struggle to find real value supporting my biases. The internet is just a mess.

So in light of the over saturation of purposefully biased content on the internet, how might a person mitigate their own personal biases?

While I addressed the issue in general and around what the impact it is causing, I can tell you a couple of things which you can attempt to mitigate your biases:-

First of all, Do you research manually. Don't stay on Twitter only for your source of news. Having multiple sources will help you in establishment of truth. The best part? The extension mentioned by the OP can actually be very helpful!

Secondly, Remember that it is all about the perspective. It is NOT necessary that the way you see things is the SAME as how I see things.

There is a difference between Data and Information, Because not every time, All the data will be informational.

You can read the article here - https://thevediwho.me/blog/data-data-and-more-data . I am not an expert but I do have a certification in social psychology. I hope this helps you.

Personally, I can't imagine ever being interested in an extension like this. In general I think I'd prefer consuming less news (such that media bias doesn't influence my thoughts) rather than consuming more news to get all sides on "the issues".

That said, I find these sort of trends fascinating because it's producing its own form of bias in terms of what views are valid opposing views, and which views are simply bunk. I'm assuming, for example, if I read an article about a covid vaccine I wouldn't be suggested an anti-vaxx article claiming that a covid vaccine will give me autism. The decision not to do so, however reasonable, means that there is a level of curation and gatekeeping which could manifest as toxic bias in theory.

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