Do we have full access of information on the internet.? There are filter bubbles that skews or limits the information that we access on the internet. These filter bubbles personalize user experience on the internet. It is based on our previous use of the web . But this can cause distorted view of reality. Filter bubbles can be viewed as Tech Target that claims to assist and enhance our experience on the internet. Data that is used to enhance user experience is based on user search history , browsing choices and previous interactions with web pages. The business model of Tech Target is that they seek our attention. There are algorithms like page rank algorithms that indicate which web pages draw attention. Google employs algorithms that suggest best for a particular persons while someone else may be shown something entirely different. It only means there is no standard Google anymore. Thus, for instance the google may show diametrically opposed web content for scientists who support stem cell research and the activists who oppose it. This appears that the algorithms pick our biases. Search engines, therefore, are not neutral or unbiased.
Our computer monitors has become a one-way mirror reflecting our own interests while algorithms watch what we click. Internet is no longer democratic but encaged in bubbles of our comfort. Internet shows us what we want to see while it hides other information. Once we could be anonymous on the internet. Today there are personal tracking cookies preying at us on the internet. The race to collect information about us in frantically on. Nothing is coming free. All the free services are portals to collect information about us. thus, our i-phone for instance, knows where we go whom do we call , what we read with its build-in microphone , gyroscope and GPS . Indeed it can know whether we are in a car or simply walking . While google and others assure us that they will protect our intimate information, but there is no guarantee of the same . Behind the pages that we browse on the internet a new market of information about what we are doing online is teeming. Therefore, every click signals that we create a commodity and every move of our mouse can be auctioned off within the micro seconds to their commercial bidder. The business model of this market is simple. More personal information, they collect , more likely we to buy the product or service they offer. This is based on predictive analytics . They say about 60% of Netflix rentals come from this analysis. Hence, personalization has become the core strategy for Big Tech and Big Business. Hence, what we may be doing next will be instigated by Big Tech. We have now entered Tech Target.
Personalization decides how information flows on the internet. It is personalisation that keeps an eye on who goes on a date and with whom and where one goes and what one talks as well as how long does the date lasts. Thus, the algorithms that orchestrates the adds that we receive are beginning to orchestrate our life. Big Tech therefore, is a prediction machines that use Big Target to orchestrate to our lives. We have always consumed media that we like and ignored the rest. But something totally new is happening with personalisation. First of all we ae alone in the filter bubble. What pops up to us is different from others. It simply means I am the only person in my bubble. In an era of shared information, the filter bubble is a centrifugal force pulling us apart. Secondly the filter bubble is invisible. The filter bubble remains opaque to us. Therefore , the information the is filtered down to us in not unbiased or objective. Thirdly we do not make the choice to enter the content of the filter bubble . It comes to us. It defines the way we see and experience the world. It becomes our echo chamber.
We do need information that is filtered down to us. We are facing information overload and are unable to process the flood that we face besides we have difficulty to store it all. This information overload can cause attention crash. Hence, we do need information to be selectively chosen by us. The filter bubble choses information for us through the predictive data analysis that depends on our past data footprints. The problem is that we end up being caged into our echo chambers and may miss several other shades of information as well as experience of reality. What we get is customized and tailored experience of reality. It a cosy place and we feel at home. Whatever we do not click about the world will simply fade away for us. We are back to geo-centrism in a sense that media simply revolves around us. But this comes at a cost. We will only be familiar with a slice of the world and will not know several vital things about our world. We become locked into our bubble. There are consequences when masses of people begin to live infilter bubbled life. This will leave us vulnerable to the dark territories of the unknown.
Filter bubbled life has less chance of encounters that can bring insight and learning. Creativity may also be hard to come. The filter bubbled life will prevent us from mind-blowing experiences and ideas that can change how we see ourselves and the world. Internet that was thought to transform all of us into neighbours has failed us. We seemed to be locked in our bubbles that do not allow us to transcend our niches of self-interest and reach out to larger public world. This bubbled life is good for consumers. It is what is ordered by the market. But it is not good for citizens and democracy. It is a civic virtue for citizens to be exposed to things outside their self-interest. When we are cocooned in the oasis of the filter bubble we become vulnerable to exploited by vested interest that is both political as well as economic.
