[remus]

Watch that video, and then think about it from a political aspect.  A month or so ago search for "Egypt" and one person gets information on holidays, the other gets information on the uprising.

You don't think that this is an important and undesirable bias that could potentially be exploited to control the information you are presented with (in much the same way that current media outlets control the spin on the news that makes it onto our airwaves)?

Yes you might find out what you want, but if you're not having something returned in your search results you remain ignorant to it.  How do you know what you're missing out on?

I understand that but then searching is a pretty poor way of getting news. Basicaly i dont agree with the idea that search is replacing newspapers and i think given some more time people will move on to more appropriate sources of news. It seems a shame to delay that by giving people the idea that search is actually a good way of consuming news.

[remus]

thing is, if I wanted news about the uprising, I wouldn't just type Egypt into my search engine...

Its a bit more subtle than that though, as google will try and return sites it thinks you'll like, so if you have a history of browsing liberal sites it's likely to give you liberal sites back. Thus you miss out on a lot of other view points.

[slackline]

Watch that video, and then think about it from a political aspect.  A month or so ago search for "Egypt" and one person gets information on holidays, the other gets information on the uprising.

You don't think that this is an important and undesirable bias that could potentially be exploited to control the information you are presented with (in much the same way that current media outlets control the spin on the news that makes it onto our airwaves)?

Yes you might find out what you want, but if you're not having something returned in your search results you remain ignorant to it.  How do you know what you're missing out on?

I understand that but then searching is a pretty poor way of getting news. Basicaly i dont agree with the idea that search is replacing newspapers and i think given some more time people will move on to more appropriate sources of news. It seems a shame to delay that by giving people the idea that search is actually a good way of consuming news.

My apologies then, that wasn't clear from what you first wrote.

[remus]

My fault really, i got bored trying to write the first post so just left it half finished.

[Stubbs]

Its a bit more subtle than that though, as google will try and return sites it thinks you'll like, so if you have a history of browsing liberal sites it's likely to give you liberal sites back. Thus you miss out on a lot of other view points.

Yeah I did watch the video, although searching for "Egypt Uprising" Gives me Wiki, BBC News, MSNBC, Egypt News. Torygraph, Economist, and Aljazeera as the top results, which seems to be a pretty good spread.  I also think anyone searching for more in depth content on a news item would be aware of the political lean of websites, and would with accept this (as they would get what they were looking for) or purposefully look at a range of websites.

I think the intersection of groups looking for in depth news, and those who take the first result google gives them would be small.

[slackline]

The cited example of "Egypt" is of course an over-simplification.

There is the potential for pernicious subtleties to tailoring search results to an individuals "profile" (touched on in the video at the start where the guy states that he likes to read about and engage with others of different political persuasions and the fact that they all disappeared from his Facebook account at some point).

[Stubbs]

What we reallyt need is Sloper to see what he gets when he writes Egypt into Google compared to everyone else.

I can't say I've noticed this happening with my Facebook, and I know you aren't on it Slackers, so no need to remind us of that.

As what results a search engine shows you is based on an arcane and undisclosed series of factors (most linked pages, etc.), I don't see that tailoring these results to the sites you click on the most is necessarily a bad thing.  It will probably mean what you were looking for is higher in the rankings...

[slackline]

Video cites that Google use 57 "signals" * to profile you.

Yes most of the time this will likely be beneficial, why do I need to know about pizza delivery in Nebraska when I'm not searching from there.

But I think the issues/scenarios/consequences of this "filter bubble" does deserve consideration if not just for yourself but also the wider implications, which to my mind are that many people aren't aware of this and they should be (at least in my opinion), although as with many "issues" that face society today, unfortunately for most people don't its not a priority for them (or they just don't care at all).



* Even if you're not logged into Google or using search, many sites allow Google to analyse traffic.

[Jim]

I think any sort of profilling or bubble filtering should be opt in

[slackline]

I think any sort of profilling or bubble filtering should be opt in

Egggsactly.