Filter Bubble

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About

A Filter Bubble is a Internet phenomenon caused by web service algorithms that personalize search results and news feeds tailored to what the viewer would like to see, which is typically based off the user's web history, geolocation and other personal information. Filter bubbles have been criticized for preventing Internet users from being exposed to opposing viewpoints, creating online echo chambers and political extremism.

Origin

In June, 2010, the former president of the liberal non-profit organization MoveOn.org Eli Pariser gave a presentation at the conference PdF 2010 titled "Filter Bubble, or How Personalization is Changing the Web" (shown below). In the talk, Pariser warned that personalized algorithms were "sublty destroying the notion of common public space."

Spread

In March 2011, Pariser gave a TED talk titled "Beware online 'filter bubbles'," which gained over 3.1 million views in the next four years.^[1] On May 12th, Pariser released the book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You.^[3]

On June 6th, 2011, the website DontBubble.us was launched, featuring an infographic about filter bubbles. On September 10th, the science news site Nature published an article on Pariser's book, which was subsequently submitted to the /r/technology^[4] subreddit, Prior to being archived the post gathered more than 1,300 votes (90% upvoted). On November 29th, 2013, the tech news site Technology Review^[5] published an article titled "How to Burst the 'Filter Bubble' that Protects Us from Opposing Views," reporting that computer scientists were working on ways to use recommendation engines to expose people to alternative viewpoints. In August 2014, the app Random^[2] was released on the iOS store, which aimed to combat filter bubbles by adapting to users to show them unexpected content.