Burst the Filter Bubbles! - written by 20218 Choi Yun Seo

Be aware of the “friendly-looking” filter bubbles!

What types of information are you getting? In a flood of information, do you think you are getting all the information you need? It's time that you reconsidered about the information you were consuming, because you might be missing some things that are important. Actually, those who thought about this before realized they were only getting limited amount of information, and were trapped in a cover called the filter bubbles.

Filter bubble is an expression first introduced by Eli Pariser in 2011, in his book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You. It's a term coined to explain about the social issue that algorithms and recommendation engines on the Internet that are shielding people from reality.

To put simply, it means that they are offering information only based on the user's interests. You might wonder why this is causing a bad effect since the Internet is noticing the users' interests and recommending information to them that are intelligent and very useful. Recommending information based on people's interested fields might be an ideal thing, but the problem is hiding underneath it.

The biggest problem is that the information you are consistently getting can be one-sided. You need to have a neutral source when it comes to the news, otherwise you’ll become biased. Suppose that you support the progressive party, and you were reading an Internet article about a legislative law that has been causing arguments between the progressive and the conservative parties. The algorithms already found out about your interested fields, so it gave you the progressive party's statement of the law. However, you will not be able to get the conservative party's position until you search for it on the Internet. You can only get the information of one side, not getting to know the other side's opinions.  This can affect you negatively even though when you were unaware of it. The filter bubbles trap you inside of them, and might make you slowly think in an unbalanced way, since the information they are giving is only limited.

Another negative effect of the filter bubbles is that you can be the target of some companies' marketing strategies. If you have ever used Amazon or Netflix, you might have noticed that those websites recommended information related to those you have clicked on lately.

They also place advertisements for you to read in the same way, which can make you the perfect marketing target. For instance, Internet news or advertisements can hook you up with some stimulating or interesting titles. You might have seen many Internet news articles that hook people with interesting titles about celebrities or new gossip, but they were actually fake news mostly with assumptions and not with facts. However, when you actually see them, what it is saying is actually nothing or could be even be completely unrelated to the title. Below the short article without confirmed facts, the articles might end with some advertisements that came out of nowhere.

Then, it will recommend you another and another news article related to the one you clicked on before, since they think that you are interested in that topic, which can finally lead you to advertisements that they were intended to give you at first. What you have to remember is that those Internet sites are actually running well because of these advertisements. If they cannot catch your eye with advertisements, they cannot operate properly. Thus, Internet users should always be aware of this and be more careful when clicking on links on websites.

Since these filter bubbles disadvantages have been researched, negative responses are being stated across the world. Those who had worked or are working in the field of algorithms have expressed unpleasant feelings towards filter bubbles. Sean Parker, Facebook's first president stated that they are exploiting the vulnerability in human psychology.

Roger McNamee, an early investor in both Facebook and Google wrote that the filter bubbles threaten public health and democracy. Since the problems of filter bubbles have risen to the surface, Internet sites such as Facebook and Google claimed that they are finding ways to improve these problems.

Meanwhile, the Internet users have developed their awareness of filter bubbles and are finding ways to burst them. One solution widespread is to use the Internet secret mode, which is not saving the records of the Internet users. That way, the algorithms will not be able to sort out the related information from the records, and eventually, it will help you not to fall into filter bubbles.

Even though filter bubbles can be regarded as useful and intelligent sometimes, there were things that they usually were hiding from you. It is true that being connected with people through interested fields can be beneficial in some way, but even more so when their views clash with each other. They can become more receptive to change when challenging with new ideas, which they hadn't thought about  If we look outside of the filter bubbles and accommodate ideas that are on a different side from ours, we can get more neutral side of information and can also extend our range of knowledge. That is why we have to get the balanced amount of information on both sides, at least on the Internet.

From now on, be aware of the filter bubbles, and try to figure out various sides of the information when many opinions clash with each other. Therefore, you will be able to accept various opinions, and can spontaneously form your thoughts and knowledge in the right way.