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1-Page Summary of The Filter Bubble

The Promise of the Web

The Internet promised freedom and transparency. It allowed people to connect with each other outside of traditional social structures. People could publish their own content, which led to new avenues for self-expression. The Internet was also a powerful tool for journalists who were able to search for truth without any restrictions or barriers. Because everyone had access to the same information, it seemed like the online world would be fair and equal for everyone involved in it. However, recently there have been some unexpected changes stemming from how companies gather information and what they do with that data once they have it.

Search engines used to produce different results for the same search because each one had its own algorithm. Now, with every search you conduct online, your favorite engine gets a better idea of what you’re looking for and tailors future searches toward that goal.

Search engines use your data to improve their search results. For example, if you searched for “Harry Potter” in the past, then a future search will show more information about Harry Potter because it thinks that’s what you want to see. Amazon uses your purchases and Netflix uses your rental history as predictors of what you’ll like next. Google narrows down its search results by showing you more things that are similar to what you’ve already seen before.

Filtered Information

Some companies gather information about you by mining Facebook updates, cell phone GPS coordinates and emails. They use that data to make ads more relevant to you, which makes them more valuable. Personalization also applies to news sites like Yahoo News and social sites like Facebook. Dating sites such as OkCupid can use your search results to show you potential matches, while Yelp uses it for restaurant recommendations. When Google filters your searches based on what they know about you, it’s invisible because the process is opaque (you don’t know how or why they’re filtering). You didn’t ask for filtered answers but when you search for something, you’ll get screened information anyway and set yourself up for future filtering.

The Internet has a lot of information, but we cannot process everything. There are hundreds of blog posts, millions of Facebook updates and billions of emails that inundate the web daily. As the cost of media drops, this flood will worsen. We need to winnow through all these things to figure out what’s important and not waste our time on trivialities.

The Filter Bubble

In the 1990s, cyber-theorists like Nicholas Negroponte believed that intelligent agents would help users navigate through media. Other innovators foresaw a filter to block all ads but wondered how the media would get paid if they did this. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tried to harness “the power of relevance” in 1994 by combining online business with personalized influence from local booksellers who know clients well enough to offer recommendations based on their tastes. He built on cybernetics research which used mathematical formulas for collaborative filtering based on users’ responses to emails and texts.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who founded Google, developed a program for finding search results that are more relevant to the user. They did this by collecting data from users via Gmail, which is free and has lots of memory. Users give up their information in exchange for using Gmail. This includes giving Google access to emails they send through Gmail so it can mine them for data about the consumer groupings (to show you personalized ads).