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I think part of the problem is that one benefit of the web is to be exposed to new ideas, and passive users are hardly benefiting from seeing stuff that doesn't
by gengkev 11y ago
I think part of the problem is that one benefit of the web is to be exposed to new ideas, and passive users are hardly benefiting from seeing stuff that doesn't challenge them.
Centralisation of power is not just a problem in that Facebook tailors content to your preferences, but also that it has the power to choose how it does so. For example, I believe that Facebook said that it might choose to ignore that a user clicked "Show me less of this", because what we say we want isn't always what we actually want. Another example is that when even people who have liked an organisation's page don't see its content, Facebook basically forces them to pay for advertising.
Some of these ideas I found in a TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s
- spc476 11y agoAnd some people like living in a bubble. A friend of mine "unfriended" me (and a few others) because we dared to present differing points of view to what he posted (in my case, it was a study that showed marijuana use had potential side effects). It's all too easy to remove yourself from alternative points of view, which was another prediction David Brin made in his novel Earth.
- prebrov 11y ago_Most_ people like living it in a bubble and go to lengths to create a comfortable bubble. That's why we hang out with like-minded friends, choose jobs at companies we share values with, watch Vice and not Fox News (or vice versa), etc. Support and backing for the choices we make give us a warm and fuzzy feeling that we're in a good place or on the right path there. Bubble is good. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.