#filter-bubble

Echos and Bubbles

In-peer groups and echo chambers

Followers of conspiracy myths tend to gain their most valued information from in-peer groups. As we all understand, this must necessarily lead to (biased) information bubbles and opinion-sustaining echo chambers. Furthermore, such bubble chambers make it easy to express even strange and violent opinions and directly or indirectly encourage people to engage in violent actions (without remorse). Of course, there is no necessity for fact checking outside their echo chambers since the group opinion is correct. People in such (socially binding) in-peer groups and echo chambers tend to polarize their opinion even further.  And this makes the increasingly prone for Fake News due their confirmation and conformity bias (a really vicious circle).

But wait, why should I be concerned in the first place? Is my in-peer group not more important then whatever is called truth? Well, if you ask me, I will stick to my peers. I don’t care if I’m accused being a digital tribalist. It’s like in olden times:  no truth saves you from wild animals or violent onslaught from other groups - only your group offers you protection and strength, so stick with it.

Echo-chambers are super-spreaders of biased information – and unless you wear a warning app – you will be a victim of their (deadly) virus.

Filter bubbles

Pariser defined a filter bubble as a personal ecosystem of information catered by algorithms. What this definition obscures, however, is that algorithm is nothing more than a fancy term for process, derived from the name of a 9th-century Persian mathematician. In every single one of those handwringing articles you see about “Are Algorithms Running Our Lives?”, you can safely replace “algorithm” with “process.” Do processes run our lives? Consider how many processes you ran through today on your way to taking out your phone or settling in at your computer, and you tell me. Taking a shower is a process. Making coffee is a process. Riding the bus and driving a car are processes. For that matter, so are the interactions you have with other people, whether you recognize those interactions as processes or not. Other people curate the information that they present to you just as you curate the information you present to them. The only novel purpose that “algorithms” in the handwringing-article sense serve is to remove the constraint of physical distance from the problem of who can curate information for whom. Whether online or in meatspace, there is still some process that filters what information you receive. The only salient difference is the extent to which you can control that process. “But don’t Facebook’s and Twitter’s algorithms limit what information I see?” Yes, and so do the choices you make in friends. The fact that your friends cater the information that ends up in your filter bubble means that your choices in who to listen to determine whether you’re a Mainlander or an Archipelagian, which inside baseball means something to you and which doesn’t. If your filter bubble contains no outliers, where do you expect to learn that outliers exist, much less what their lives are like? If your goal is to make existing spaces more welcoming to the mainstream, what effect do you think that has on outliers? Especially when only the mainstream gets a say? If your goal is, instead, inclusivity of both mainstream and outlier populations, what actions do you think you could take to learn more about outliers and the Chesterton’s fences they rely on?

Not every single fucking transgression by “their” people against "our" people is newsworthy, governments are not synonymous with their people, and the other side is not literally the spawn of satan.

And it’s not right wing exclusive either. The abandonment of facts and reason over radicalization is common in the internet. Because it’s easier to spread misinformation, and bullshit than to actually fact check or do research, or listen to the other side; and recognize them as perfectly legitimate people.