3 ms·

You are just debating semantics. "Filter bubbles" are a real phenomenon, where political information gets filtered to reinforce your existing biases. This is so

You are just debating semantics. "Filter bubbles" are a real phenomenon, where political information gets filtered to reinforce your existing biases. This is something new. Yes newspapers in the past had a political bias, sometimes. But newspapers were sold to subscribers, individual stories didn't have to compete to be the most angry and the most biased. Papers tried to present a neutral point of view and explain both positions. We've now created an economy where the only way to get clicks is to make an article that is more angry, more provocative, and more biased than the competing articles. The market is optimizing for values that are far removed from what actually benefits society. And the machine will keep optimizing those values to the point of absurdity. To the point where it tears society apart. To the point where the average reader spends their entire life and never hears an opposing point of view. Obviously facebook doesn't have a "filter_bubble.php" and literally no one is claiming that. It's understood this is just a natural result of using machine learning to customize newsfeeds. But it is a real result, that has real consequences. You could maybe even argue that people want this. I'm not sure if that's really true. But it's irrelevant to the argument that it's bad for society as a whole. Just answer this one question. Do you honestly believe the world is better off with this, than if facebook did something else? Now as to whether people actually want this, I don't think they do. The problem with collaborative filtering is that the basic assumption is wrong. That if people click or like a post, that means they actually want to see more content like it. Or that if they don't click or like it, they want to see less like that. This is just obviously false. People like and share things to advertise their political positions. Or at least in the hope that other people will see it. Likewise they don't vote on things they don't want to advertise, or don't want other people to see. If that sounds confusing, concrete example. On reddit I sometimes read an article that I disagree with slightly. I don't upvote it, because I don't want it to be ranked higher so more people see content I disagree with. Or I don't want to give social rewards to the poster. But I still might want to see more content like it in the future. Maybe I'm interested in the subject, or like arguing about it, or just don't care about occasionally reading stuff I disagree with. The only way to properly do collaborative filtering is if "likes" and votes are private, and are only used to predict what articles you will like or dislike, nothing else. It can't feel like "liking" is equivalent to a vote for that position, as opposed merely "show me more articles like this". Then facebook also uses information like whether you clicked on a post. But that just encourages clickbait, articles with provocative or misleading titles. You should only take into account whether people like the article or not, after reading it. Otherwise you are just optimizing for clickbait even the users don't actually want. Lastly there is just standard false information. If I read an article filled with incorrect arguments and information, I might not know the information is incorrect and like it. On a meta level, I don't really want to see articles with false information. But as a random user, I have no way of knowing that, so just my like behavior doesn't take that value into account, and so wouldn't optimize for it.

ry_ry 10y ago
> Yes newspapers in the past had a political bias, sometimes. I'd argue that newspapers still very much follow and propagate their own political agenda through the tone and treatment of news items. The sentiment and tone of tabloid* headlines, for example, will be squarely focused on reinforcing their core readership's existing opinions rather than simply informing them of interesting and relevant events, or challenging their viewpoint.
mabcat 10y ago
> Now as to whether people actually want this, I don't think they do. They do. Surely you've seen statuses to the effect of "any one of my friends who supports [belief] can just go and unfriend me so I don't have to unfriend you". Certainly I have friends who are so stridently in support of things I think are unethical/illogical/foolish that I've unfollowed them because their posts make my head hurt. If it weren't for the bubble there'd be a lot more of that.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  But that's a consequence of filter bubbles. Those people spend all day seeing posts supporting their point of view, that they believe the opposing side is literally inhuman/evil/idiots. I don't think people really want to end up like that in the first place. I think if you let them actually decide what articles they want to see, they would choose less extreme ones. The problem with facebook is they have tied "I want to see more articles like this" with "I want other people to see this article", which are slightly different.
doctorpangloss 10y ago
> Do you honestly believe the world is better off with this, than if facebook did something else? Obviously the world is better off without insane political nonsense. Just like it's better off, obviously, without gambling or alcohol, and a whole lot of other stuff... I wish these things could be dealt away with somehow. I'm trying to avoid the normative question of whether it's good or bad. The people who are most vociferously arguing it's bad are the institutions (like Vice) that stand to lose economically from changes in the Newsfeed recommender. > the only way to get clicks... only way to properly do collaborative filtering Facebook has probably had hundreds of highly educated and outside-the-box thinking people looking at the Newsfeed. Someone there has thought of and probably tried every approach to improve the quality of their recommendations using the metrics they are interested in. They probably thought of every possible metric to be interested in, and pathologically optimized the metrics they're interested in, long before advertising was the primary way they made money. As an example, Facebook got rid of those automatic game posts. Those posted generated absolutely monumental levels of engagement and powered a huge economic engine (Zynga). Facebook got rid of them. Zynga was pissed, and while nobody cried a tear for them, you could certainly imagine some ViceVille.com talking about how bad it is for free to play Facebook game publishers that this automatic game posting thing went away. Where are all the people talking about how getting rid of automatic game posts puts Facebook users into an entertainment bubble, cutting them off from a vast ecosystem of light entertainment? Some (really blowhard) people could seriously argue that. I don't mean to be a blowhard. But if it just comes down to, 'Vice is cool, Zynga drools,' well then there's not much to talk about.

ry_ry 10y ago

> Yes newspapers in the past had a political bias, sometimes. I'd argue that newspapers still very much follow and propagate their own political agenda through the tone and treatment of news items. The sentiment and tone of tabloid* headlines, for example, will be squarely focused on reinforcing their core readership's existing opinions rather than simply informing them of interesting and relevant events, or challenging their viewpoint.

mabcat 10y ago

> Now as to whether people actually want this, I don't think they do. They do. Surely you've seen statuses to the effect of "any one of my friends who supports [belief] can just go and unfriend me so I don't have to unfriend you". Certainly I have friends who are so stridently in support of things I think are unethical/illogical/foolish that I've unfollowed them because their posts make my head hurt. If it weren't for the bubble there'd be a lot more of that.

Houshalter 10y ago
But that's a consequence of filter bubbles. Those people spend all day seeing posts supporting their point of view, that they believe the opposing side is literally inhuman/evil/idiots. I don't think people really want to end up like that in the first place. I think if you let them actually decide what articles they want to see, they would choose less extreme ones. The problem with facebook is they have tied "I want to see more articles like this" with "I want other people to see this article", which are slightly different.

doctorpangloss 10y ago

> Do you honestly believe the world is better off with this, than if facebook did something else? Obviously the world is better off without insane political nonsense. Just like it's better off, obviously, without gambling or alcohol, and a whole lot of other stuff... I wish these things could be dealt away with somehow. I'm trying to avoid the normative question of whether it's good or bad. The people who are most vociferously arguing it's bad are the institutions (like Vice) that stand to lose economically from changes in the Newsfeed recommender. > the only way to get clicks... only way to properly do collaborative filtering Facebook has probably had hundreds of highly educated and outside-the-box thinking people looking at the Newsfeed. Someone there has thought of and probably tried every approach to improve the quality of their recommendations using the metrics they are interested in. They probably thought of every possible metric to be interested in, and pathologically optimized the metrics they're interested in, long before advertising was the primary way they made money. As an example, Facebook got rid of those automatic game posts. Those posted generated absolutely monumental levels of engagement and powered a huge economic engine (Zynga). Facebook got rid of them. Zynga was pissed, and while nobody cried a tear for them, you could certainly imagine some ViceVille.com talking about how bad it is for free to play Facebook game publishers that this automatic game posting thing went away. Where are all the people talking about how getting rid of automatic game posts puts Facebook users into an entertainment bubble, cutting them off from a vast ecosystem of light entertainment? Some (really blowhard) people could seriously argue that. I don't mean to be a blowhard. But if it just comes down to, 'Vice is cool, Zynga drools,' well then there's not much to talk about.