The Filter Bubble – a warning against algorithmic recommendation in the web!

The TED talk below isn’t particularly new but I have only just found the time to watch this and it is something that I feel pretty passionately about so thought I would pop down a few thoughts.

In the 9 minute video, Eric Pariser takes us through his eloquent argument against the ‘personalisation’ of the web by algorithms set-up to increase the content you are exposed to that is of a similar kind to that you have previously engaged with.

The ‘Filter Bubble’ refers to your web, and the content inside it that is similar to that which you liked before. The perils of this mean that our interestes become ‘dumbed down’ increasing the sugar factor’ of entertainment vs challenging material.

The strange thing for me as a social media professional how few people actually know this outside media and advertising. Speaking to people about their Facebook news feed is perhaps the best demonstration, and people are astounded to know it’s probably only about 5% of the conversations that are going on that pop up in it. Notice your peripheral friends becoming more marginalised anyone?

Here is a link to the talk…

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

And this fantastic book cover links to the website to find out more…