Initially after watching this part of the video, I still wasn't too concerned about the search result tailoring. I have been using Google forever, and I have always found it convenient that I find what I am looking for usually on the very first page of my search results. But then as I continued watching the video, Pariser mentions a few other internet sites like Yahoo news and the Huffington Post, and even the NY Times. They all personalize the information they show you. This is where I started to realize the danger of this technology. Many people, like I did initially, don't have any complaints about the personalization of these websites, because they don't know what information they are missing. Many people probably don't even know that they are being held back from information at all, because every site they visit is tailored to what they "want" to see. Americans are trapped in a bubble that only a few know how to get out of. At what point does the tailoring of these websites become censorship?
Monday, September 3, 2012
Personalization or Censorship?
Earlier this week in class, Mr. Bolos talked a little bit about how Google and Facebook are tailored to each individual and how they try to show only what someone "wants" to see. I was really intrigued by this because I had never really thought much about my google search results. I had always accepted them as an unbiased collection of information; I assumed everybody got the same results. When I got home, I decided to do a little bit of research on Google's 57 signals. I found this really interesting video of Eli Pariser talking about the danger of "filter bubbles." If you watch the video from 2:06 to 3:21, you can hear him talk about how Google is tailored to different people.
Initially after watching this part of the video, I still wasn't too concerned about the search result tailoring. I have been using Google forever, and I have always found it convenient that I find what I am looking for usually on the very first page of my search results. But then as I continued watching the video, Pariser mentions a few other internet sites like Yahoo news and the Huffington Post, and even the NY Times. They all personalize the information they show you. This is where I started to realize the danger of this technology. Many people, like I did initially, don't have any complaints about the personalization of these websites, because they don't know what information they are missing. Many people probably don't even know that they are being held back from information at all, because every site they visit is tailored to what they "want" to see. Americans are trapped in a bubble that only a few know how to get out of. At what point does the tailoring of these websites become censorship?
Initially after watching this part of the video, I still wasn't too concerned about the search result tailoring. I have been using Google forever, and I have always found it convenient that I find what I am looking for usually on the very first page of my search results. But then as I continued watching the video, Pariser mentions a few other internet sites like Yahoo news and the Huffington Post, and even the NY Times. They all personalize the information they show you. This is where I started to realize the danger of this technology. Many people, like I did initially, don't have any complaints about the personalization of these websites, because they don't know what information they are missing. Many people probably don't even know that they are being held back from information at all, because every site they visit is tailored to what they "want" to see. Americans are trapped in a bubble that only a few know how to get out of. At what point does the tailoring of these websites become censorship?
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I am also alarmed at how Google is trying to cater to everyone's personal interests. Although it sounds harmless and even helpful, the amount of personal information and knowledge these "search engines" are getting from us is unsettling. Furthermore, the fact that Google is editing our search results is a form of censorship. We, as users of this technology, are not seeing the big picture. I understand that with technology, you can rarely un-personalize something completely, but this is going a little too far. I wonder, what would the completely un-personalized Google search for "Egypt" say? Or is there even such a thing?
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