Both of these videos (Filter Bubbles and Privacy Matters) drew a strong response from me – and my
reactions to both issues over the years has already somewhat framed my answers
to the next exercise entitled Social Media & Me.
However, in this post I will address the issue of the filter
bubble. To me this is one of the
big social/civic issues of our time.
We live in a world which is constantly affirming us and our personal
life choices; social media, through the use of filtering does not challenge us
but holds up a magic mirror, so our choices, whatever their merits, are always
reflected positively. It’s easily
tested - send out a post or group text to your friends decrying the driver who
cut you off at the intersection this morning, and the responses will roll in
empathising with you and supporting your frustration/angry response. The fact that the incident wasn’t witnessed by a single
person who responds won’t be relevant – it’s the affirmation from those around
us – justifying our choices and role in a situation that will matter – the
facts will be left lying, unexamined, where they fell.
At a larger scale, this filtering affects our sense of ourselves,
our importance and our sense of social justice. If all the news we receive is filtered to be either a
certain type of story, or commentary slanted towards our own world view, then
we will begin to see the world as an homogenous place, leaving open the door
for scorn or mistreatment of those whose ideas, opinions and backgrounds do not
match our own. A whole, robust
society supports diversity. A
challenge to an ingrained way of thinking can help a person to grow and create
a desire to understand the full complexity of life and its myriad of
choices. Decades ago, this was
firmly the role of the editorial or the opinion piece in the major national
newspapers. The reviews often
examined complex economic, social or political issues in depth. If they presented only one side of the
argument, another journalist would present the alternative. Together this created open, public
debate.
Many in the western world today decry the censorship known
to be imposed by totalitarian states, and are quick to present the negative
consequences of both the censorship and the harsh regime needed to allow it to
succeed. Meanwhile, quietly but
surely, corporations are achieving the same ends of social homogeneity by the application
of filter bubbles. Here’s a great quote which neatly illustrates the nature of the world created behind those filter bubbles…
I've built a network that curates interestingness. In
my universe, it encompasses thousands and thousands of filters and people, each
person being a filter. So it's kinda cool. Like I've created my own utopia,
removing the boring stuff and showing only the amazing stuff. Jason Silva
These quotes represent the situation as it could be:
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right
to tell people what they do not want to hear. George Orwell
Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't
like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.
Neil Gaiman
And these last quotes indicate the consequences of a
lazy acceptance of the censoring nature of filters:
Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive
world of 'The Giver': the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds.
But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality
distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all. Lois Lowry
The fact is that censorship always defeats its own
purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of
exercising real discretion. In the long run it will create a generation
incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and
subservience. Henry Steele Commager
Source: http://www.goodreads.com/
I like your example of the car incident, where one viewpoint becomes fact. The internet in general and social media in particular have had a huge impact on the way people seek and consume information. It's becoming harder to find something close to (or even trying to be) a balanced and impartial factual report of events. Optimistically, I'd like to think we are all becoming more sophisticated consumers of information and gradually learning to balance a range of subjective views. Realistically, I think there is a tendency to gravitate towards an information source that aligns with our own viewpoint and doesn't challenge our beliefs and prejudices.
ReplyDeleteThe quotes are great. Also I think that social media companies have messedthe algorithms so much that the reason for people using social media (to find information channels now that the traditional channels have eroded) in order to get the information they want sends them into fishbowls instead where the information requested is lost and the magnification of a errant click bait takes over, causing the user to opt out of the platform altogether.
ReplyDeleteGreat use of quotes on your blog, it draws the reader in. I hope to remember and use a couple of those myself sometime :)
ReplyDelete