Web giants like Facebook and Google only want the best for us. Of course. Or maybe, what they really want is to make sure that we don’t switch to other social networks or search engines. Which is, in fact, a huge difference.
You may have already noticed that some of our friends on Facebook are remarkably – silent. They don’t seem to post any status updates, don’t seem to “Like” anything or comment on other people’s pictures. While you see regular status updates, links or videos posted by other people in your friends list, those who don’t seem to do anything slowly fade from your view.
Now here comes the “but”. In reality, those friends that don’t seem to be very active can be even more active users than those that regularly appear in your newsfeed. It’s just that Facebook thinks that you are not so interested in them, and therefore hides them from you.
Facebook does this using an algorithm called EdgeRank that takes into account how often you comment on other people’s status updates, “like” their pictures or interact with them in any other way on the network. This is meant to make your newsfeed more relevant to you, and only show you things that you might like and not anything that could put you off.
You might think now “Okay, maybe Facebook shows me just a fraction of what is happening, but outside the social network, I will still see the real world”.
Well, not when you stay online. In 2009, Google introduced a feature called “personalised search” – which is not really a feature, but actually the standard search function now.
If you have a Google Mail account and are logged in, Google will keep track of your web searches and of the links you click, and will use this information to filter the results of your next search, again trying to show only the most relevant stuff for you.
And even if you don’t have a Google account, this filter system still secretly ranks the search results according to your previous search history and clicked links on your computer, referring to the IP-address.
So what’s the problem with these filter algorithms? Isn’t it great that I don’t have to see all kinds of junk any more, but only the stuff that is useful for me? That support my views? That support nothing but my views?
And there is the trick in it. If the web confronts us not with a world full of opposing opinions and discussions, but only with a sweet lollipop version of reality, where everyone thinks in the same way and cares about the same things, we simply lose track of the real world.
It might be that conflicts in other countries don’t make you press a “Like” button or click a link, but is that a reason to lose sight of them?
In the book “The Facebook effect” by David Kirkpatrick there is a famous quote by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who said that “a squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa”.
Although this sounds very cynical, it might be true – but is this a reason to simply forget about everything that lies beyond your horizon? Should the fact that you just don’t like some things make them disappear from your view?
And even more pressing, should a global company have the right to manipulate your view of the world without telling you about it?
Neither Facebook not Google ask you if you want to use these algorithms, they are installed in the default settings. So if you don’t want to use them, you have to deliberately opt out of them – but you can’t if you don’t even know that they exist.
The consequences of this limited view on the world should not be underestimated: if you think everyone shares the same opinion as you, you might decide not to go to a vote, since you know that your party will win anyway; you might not take part in a demonstration, since everyone else will go; or will not sign a petition because everyone wants it anyway, so what’s the point of a petition?
So these filters can do more than just blend out unpleasant things, they can change our politics or have even bigger consequences.
If you want to shut down these filters on your accounts, you have to dig deep into your settings: To pause (yes, not delete, you can only pause it) the Google algorism, you need to go to your account settings and choose the option “pause web history”. For Facebook, you need to go to the settings of your newsfeed to stop the network from filtering your friends.
And if you still feel that you are not getting the big picture, maybe switch your news intake source to the website of a newspaper instead of relying on your social network. Or be brave and go for the print edition.
Censored stamp by VaGla via Wikimedia Commons, Google search screenshot by Beki Hill.
Other Elements articles in which you might be interested:
- Facebook versus Google – the clash of the web giants?
- Cloud Girlfriends & Fake Facebook Love
- Book review: Googled: The End of the World As We Know It
Environment
Comment: Everyone thinks the way I do, don’t they?
Web giants like Facebook and Google only want the best for us. Of course. Or maybe, what they really want is to make sure that we don’t switch to other social networks or search engines. Which is, in fact, a huge difference.
You may have already noticed that some of our friends on Facebook are remarkably – silent. They don’t seem to post any status updates, don’t seem to “Like” anything or comment on other people’s pictures. While you see regular status updates, links or videos posted by other people in your friends list, those who don’t seem to do anything slowly fade from your view.
Now here comes the “but”. In reality, those friends that don’t seem to be very active can be even more active users than those that regularly appear in your newsfeed. It’s just that Facebook thinks that you are not so interested in them, and therefore hides them from you.
Facebook does this using an algorithm called EdgeRank that takes into account how often you comment on other people’s status updates, “like” their pictures or interact with them in any other way on the network. This is meant to make your newsfeed more relevant to you, and only show you things that you might like and not anything that could put you off.
You might think now “Okay, maybe Facebook shows me just a fraction of what is happening, but outside the social network, I will still see the real world”.
Well, not when you stay online. In 2009, Google introduced a feature called “personalised search” – which is not really a feature, but actually the standard search function now.
If you have a Google Mail account and are logged in, Google will keep track of your web searches and of the links you click, and will use this information to filter the results of your next search, again trying to show only the most relevant stuff for you.
And even if you don’t have a Google account, this filter system still secretly ranks the search results according to your previous search history and clicked links on your computer, referring to the IP-address.
So what’s the problem with these filter algorithms? Isn’t it great that I don’t have to see all kinds of junk any more, but only the stuff that is useful for me? That support my views? That support nothing but my views?
And there is the trick in it. If the web confronts us not with a world full of opposing opinions and discussions, but only with a sweet lollipop version of reality, where everyone thinks in the same way and cares about the same things, we simply lose track of the real world.
It might be that conflicts in other countries don’t make you press a “Like” button or click a link, but is that a reason to lose sight of them?
In the book “The Facebook effect” by David Kirkpatrick there is a famous quote by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who said that “a squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa”.
Although this sounds very cynical, it might be true – but is this a reason to simply forget about everything that lies beyond your horizon? Should the fact that you just don’t like some things make them disappear from your view?
And even more pressing, should a global company have the right to manipulate your view of the world without telling you about it?
Neither Facebook not Google ask you if you want to use these algorithms, they are installed in the default settings. So if you don’t want to use them, you have to deliberately opt out of them – but you can’t if you don’t even know that they exist.
The consequences of this limited view on the world should not be underestimated: if you think everyone shares the same opinion as you, you might decide not to go to a vote, since you know that your party will win anyway; you might not take part in a demonstration, since everyone else will go; or will not sign a petition because everyone wants it anyway, so what’s the point of a petition?
So these filters can do more than just blend out unpleasant things, they can change our politics or have even bigger consequences.
If you want to shut down these filters on your accounts, you have to dig deep into your settings: To pause (yes, not delete, you can only pause it) the Google algorism, you need to go to your account settings and choose the option “pause web history”. For Facebook, you need to go to the settings of your newsfeed to stop the network from filtering your friends.
And if you still feel that you are not getting the big picture, maybe switch your news intake source to the website of a newspaper instead of relying on your social network. Or be brave and go for the print edition.
Censored stamp by VaGla via Wikimedia Commons, Google search screenshot by Beki Hill.
Other Elements articles in which you might be interested: