The real Filter Bubble debate

The real debate is, who gets to decide what the filter is? We have to have one, nobody can handle the full flood of data, so it's not a matter of whether we have one, it's who gets to control it.

Do you let the user control it? That's great philosophically, but I think in practice it will be hardly any different than search engines just intelligently twiddling the settings based on your actions. On the other hand, pretty much any answer other than the user creates even larger problems with conflicts of interest.

Eli Pariser did a great job of selling the idea that we should be exposed to true diversity, but I still fear that in practice the truly gut, visceral reaction that people have to this is that people can end up in $NOT_MY_IDEOLOGY bubbles, and what they really want is going to be less about diversity and more about making sure that people's bubbles put more of $MY_IDEOLOGY into everybody's bubble (as $MY_IDEOLOGY is obviously the one true correct ideology and therefore deserving of special treatment). There are a lot more people claiming to value diversity than there are people who truly want people to be exposed to the best arguments against $MY_IDEOLOGY there is.

I would actually be rather upset if my filter bubble went away. More than 50% of the time I search for something on Google, I'm actually just looking for the relevant wikipedia page.

When I'm searching for something code related, I always want stackoverflow to be at the top.

Most of the time, when I do a google search, I have a destination in mind, and am simply using google to get there. The only time that I really want diversity is when I'm searching for something in a completely new subject matter. This happens relatively rarely.

I have always thought that the best way to prevent the filter bubble was to expand your own circle of influence. I don't ever want to rely on any algorithm to provide 100% of the picture. If you build an info gather apparatus that from time to time can challenge your ideas then you will be better off.

I agree with your point that it's a false dichotomy, especially because you can always just use your own will to find opinions outside the bubble.

Do you really see a real problem here?

Closed-minded people want to get results that are accurate to their opinions, preferences, etc. The best way to make them satisfied is to re-use their search/browsing history and return results biased toward them. There is nothing wrong with that, we all do that in normal life to some point choosing people, events and places similar to us.

Open-minded people will always look for alternatives, they will like to see options, thus still looking for valuable information but according to different points of view. And this is why there are different newspapers on the market - some of them present the one and only vision of reality, others prefer to start a discussion about the real meaning of the facts.

And in the same way different search and recommendation engines will be enriched with such options, so we can have a choice. Otherwise we will leave looking for a service that does.

Is it really safe to assume that no filtering or personalization leads to diverse results? Isn't it more likely that unfiltered search results just put you in the mainstream bubble?

I think the problem is the usage of the word "bubble" in this context. It doesn't make sense.

I would like a visible toggle switch for the filter. It's ok to filter stuff out but I'd like to know what the generic result looks like. Of course, that might be a philosophical mess because what exactly is the right algorithmic balance? Still, the toggle would create awareness about the extent of the information filter. The real danger of a filter is people thinking that their version of the news is the best version.

Random aside: one of the most annoying happenstances of the modern interweb is the prevalence of those ads that follow you around especially because they're really poor at being relevant.