Hotel Rwanda or Sex in the City? Beware of the Filter Bubble

From http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news

In his viral TED talk, Eli Pariser from MoveOn.org clearly names and shows how the internet is being personalized and the impact this has on society and ethics. With web filtering or "invisible algorithmic editing of the web," the results we see in Google, Facebook, and many other web companies are being altered based on data that is collected about us. Pariser dubs this a "filter bubble" where you don't see what is edited out.  

The issue with the filter bubble is that these algorithms decide what to show us depending on what links we click on. What we want to see may differ greatly from what we need to see. Pariser's example using Netflix queues resonated with me. Although I felt like I needed to watch the film, Hotel Rwanda, that portrays genocide, I got through all seasons of Sex and the City first. With a filter bubble, I would not see the option of renting the difficult-to-watch film that helped me learn and reflect on this atrocity - and what we can do to ensure it doesn't happen again.

I agree with Pariser that a good flow of information is key to democracy and this is one of the reasons that I'm passionate about libraries and information science. He argues that web algorithms need a sense of civic responsibility embedded in them and that individuals should have some ability to control the results we see. The Internet has opened floodgates of information and has rapidly transformed our day to day lives. It's in our best interest to keep the Internet open and accessible.