Through Nancy Colored Glasses
A friend sent a link to a TED presentation recently. TED, for those who don't know about it, is a kind of information sharing "experience." In its own words, "TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize."
One of the ideas recently presented was about Internet filtering of search results.
I had written previously about how Facebook delivers friends posts to you based on the things you tend to click on or respond to. You are not seeing all your friends posts and updates. While at first I was surprised to learn this, after considering it, I realized that of course you couldn't possibly be getting everything that's posted by, say, 200 friends! What you can't do, however, is instruct Facebook to always show you posts from particular people - in fact, you can't control its filtering algorithm in any way whatsoever. Really the only thing you can do is click on a lot of links provided by people you want to stay in closer touch with.
The TED presentation informs us that this practice is even more widespread - search engines are doing it, too! We've all noticed the ads that are served up by Google on say, Gmail, are related to the content of your emails. I actually don't mind this. If I'm going to have to suffer ads, it might as well be ads related to something I'm interested in. At first it felt a little creepy to realize that Google was "reading" my emails (they actually just parse it for words they use to match you to ads).
But at the TED presentation shown here (http://www.wimp.com/filterbubbles/), we are told that when we perform simple searches, we are getting results that are significantly different from person to person. The "world" we are shown is filtered by the choices that we make.
As the speaker says, I like to be ecumenical in my reading and inquiries. I want to see all sides of an issue, not just the one I might be inclined to agree with. I don't like the idea that I might not even know that another viewpoint exists, because I'm not seeing it when I search on a subject, again, based upon my previous choices and interests.
Knowing that Google (and other engines) are doing this, I will make an effort to actively include a wide variety of sources of information. But there are some subjects where I simply may not know where to go looking for these sources - I may not know who they are!
But in any event, it's worth knowing that the "world" as delivered to you by Google isn't the same one your next door neighbor is seeing, and evaluate the information you receive accordingly.
One of the ideas recently presented was about Internet filtering of search results.
I had written previously about how Facebook delivers friends posts to you based on the things you tend to click on or respond to. You are not seeing all your friends posts and updates. While at first I was surprised to learn this, after considering it, I realized that of course you couldn't possibly be getting everything that's posted by, say, 200 friends! What you can't do, however, is instruct Facebook to always show you posts from particular people - in fact, you can't control its filtering algorithm in any way whatsoever. Really the only thing you can do is click on a lot of links provided by people you want to stay in closer touch with.
The TED presentation informs us that this practice is even more widespread - search engines are doing it, too! We've all noticed the ads that are served up by Google on say, Gmail, are related to the content of your emails. I actually don't mind this. If I'm going to have to suffer ads, it might as well be ads related to something I'm interested in. At first it felt a little creepy to realize that Google was "reading" my emails (they actually just parse it for words they use to match you to ads).
But at the TED presentation shown here (http://www.wimp.com/filterbubbles/), we are told that when we perform simple searches, we are getting results that are significantly different from person to person. The "world" we are shown is filtered by the choices that we make.
As the speaker says, I like to be ecumenical in my reading and inquiries. I want to see all sides of an issue, not just the one I might be inclined to agree with. I don't like the idea that I might not even know that another viewpoint exists, because I'm not seeing it when I search on a subject, again, based upon my previous choices and interests.
Knowing that Google (and other engines) are doing this, I will make an effort to actively include a wide variety of sources of information. But there are some subjects where I simply may not know where to go looking for these sources - I may not know who they are!
But in any event, it's worth knowing that the "world" as delivered to you by Google isn't the same one your next door neighbor is seeing, and evaluate the information you receive accordingly.
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