Thread: A New Kind of Web Censorship, and why you should care

Here's a video you can watch, but it's about 10 minutes long so I'll give you a short version of it.

Google, Facebook, and other online content/search providers are now tweaking your news feeds, search results, and generally what you are guided to on the web in a way that may actually be detrimental to an informed public. There's nothing sinister about their motives, they're just trying to keep you comfortable. If you are very conservative (for example), Google picks up on this based on what you search for and which links you go to, so they will tailor your search results so that you will only receive news and search results that are aligned with your current political views. The trouble with this is that Liberals will never get conservative perspectives on current events, conservatives will never get progressive perspectives on current events, and "informed" people will actually be in a bubble where their worldview is never challenged. I personally need to have my views challenged.

I find this rather disturbing. Without being confronted with uncomfortable points of view, people become fools. I need my views challenged, sometimes I change my mind about things when this happens, sometimes not, but it's important to face the other side of an issue. Without doing so we loose a great deal of understanding. When people on differing sides of issues get down to brass tacks, they are typically not that far apart in what they actually want. I think tailored news and information further drives a wedge in political discourse and hamstrings any progress.

The coolest part of this for me is, I suspected it. I only find posts from SRP on my google searches. Now how to change that little feature. I hate being ignorant to what else is going on.

I thought that was a fantastic video. Thank you for posting it. And I agree with you....I need my views challenged. Hanging around the same people is boring, as is reading the same material or viewing the same material.

I do love TED as well. So many interesting people have been showcased.

Mozilla Firefox has a setting to delete all cookies and Web site information when the browser exits (you can probably do this with any browser). This procedure seems to prevent the targeted search results in the search engines I have tried.

If they can't track your browsing/search habits, hopefully they can't narrow the search results they provide. Hope that helps.

Thanks for that, Trout. I use Firefox.

Kind of reminds me of something I was told in my formative years. You can't stand for something unless you are well educated in what you are standing against.

Thats interesting stuff, but I cant really say I'm surprised. I usually go to FARK, Reddit, ect for more obscure news, so it doesnt affect me all that much, they pretty much carter to all sides.

I figured this thread was about SOPA before I clicked on it. Thats an even nastier piece of work.

I fail to see how this is in any way different to how any of the major media outlets have been treating us for decades. Or governments. Or schools. Or Universities.

If you rely on other people to inform you, then you know only what other people want you to know. Being a critical reader/listener/watcher is the only way to approach any sources of information IMO.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I fail to see how this is in any way different to how any of the major media outlets have been treating us for decades. Or governments. Or schools. Or Universities.

If you rely on other people to inform you, then you know only what other people want you to know. Being a critical reader/listener/watcher is the only way to approach any sources of information IMO.

James.

Google used to just give you what you searched for, but now they give you what they think you're most likely to want to see. The example from the video is telling. Two people googled "Egypt". One person got news of the revolution, the other got travel bargains. Just from a practical viewpoint, I'd like to know about a revolution at the same time that I'm booking my flight there.

Sorry, I realise that came across as snarky. I guess it is a bit snarky, but not at the video or anyone here - I like that people are aware of this kind of thing.

What frustrates me is that an idea like this is considered so profound it is a TED talk. It frustrates me because it is clear and ever-growing evidence that our society values a good education so little that "good" students are the ones that parrot the current paradigm, not the ones that think outside the box or question the status quo. It frustrates me because you can see the forces at work that cause this "will this be on the test" mentality. And it scares me that there is one clear and definitive outcome of such behaviour, and I fear we are not too far from it. (I think the GFC is just the beginning of the consequences).

So yes, this guy makes good points, but they are not only valid for the web. It is valid for our lives. The problem is clearing the cache of our lives is not so easy as it is on a web browser.

James.