In today’s social media world we are truly surfing the web in a filter bubble. The term filter bubble was coined by Internet activist Eli Pariser in his book, “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You” (2011).
This is achieved by social media websites and companies increase and maintain customer service offering. Filter bubbles are based on pervious search results and likes, meaning that each web search result is personalized to the individual. A definition which accurately describes the filter bubble – ‘is the intellectual isolation that can occur when websites make use of algorithms to selectively assume the information a user would want to see, and then give information to the user according to this assumption. Websites make these assumptions based on the information related to the user, such as former click behavior, browsing history, search history and location. For that reason, the websites are more likely to present only information that will abide by the users past activity’. The main issue with the a filter bubble is that is out of the users control , so the user can lack variety of their search meaning we can miss out up to date information which is occurring around us.
How to pop your filter bubble:
The ad companies and personal data vendors that power and profit from personalization are far more technologically advanced than most of the tools for controlling your personal data. That’s why The Filter Bubble calls on companies and governments to change the rules they operate. Without those changes, it’s simply not possible to escape targeting and personalization entirely.
1. Burn your cookies. Cookies are one of the easiest ways for companies to track you from site to site.
2. Erase your web history. Those who remember their web history are doomed to repeat it.
3. Tell Facebook to keep your data private. More than any other company, Facebook has made a massive amount of previously private data public.
4. It’s your birthday and you can hide it if you want to.
5. Turn off targeted ads, and tell the stalking sneakers to buzz off. If you’d rather not be followed around the internet by merchandise you’re vaguely interested in, the major ad networks offer a relatively easy opt-out.
6. Go incognito: This one’s easy: most recent browsers have a “private browsing” or “incognito” mode that turns off history tracking.
7. Or better yet, go anonymous: Sites like Torproject.org and Anonymizer.com allow you to run all of your browser traffic through their servers, effectively removing some of the signals that come through when you’re in incognito mode.
8. Depersonalize your browser: If you’re using one of those sites, you’ve turned off your cookies.
9. Tell Google and Facebook to make it easier to see and control your filters: While both companies provide nominal tools to access your personal information and manipulate your filters.
10. Tell Government you care: Lobby the government to show you care.
A filter bubble, therefore, can cause users to get significantly less contact with contradicting viewpoints, causing the user to become intellectually isolated.
Vivian O' Brien Marketing 