3 ms·

On the contrary, Facebook is the one place where people get pushed out of their filter bubbles regularly. You know your racist family member you see sharing co

by ef4 10y ago

On the contrary, Facebook is the one place where people get pushed out of their filter bubbles regularly. You know your racist family member you see sharing conspiracy theories on Facebook? That's reality, that's something punching through the filter bubble. It's precisely because Facebook is full of hometown and family connections that it lets these ideas leak across. It makes Facebook feel pretty bad sometimes, because filter bubbles are very pleasant.

ipostonthisacc 10y ago
Except Facebook and Google filter what you see based on your views, likes etc. so the exact opposite is true.
ChicagoBoy11 10y ago
I'll push back against this. It seems to me that Facebook makes it more challenging for you to filter through that bubble. Their algorithms are tailored to get me to engage with the site and keep my session alive as long as possible. Not surprisingly, I'm sure that it will present me more with things that please me -- either things I agree with or people backlashing against things I disagree with -- than not. As a user, it seems it takes an extra level of awareness and conscious work on my part to fight against their ranking algorithms. It does not present to me a snapshot of my social network as it is; it presents me a snapshot of my social network that seeks to maximize its perceived relevance to me at any given moment. That isn't the same thing. Having said that, I think it is too easy to fault them for this. I'm an educator, and I think the only meaningful weapon against this is educating people on the forces involved. I'm also painfully aware that as I write this, an enormous swath of my fb friends are asking to be "unfriended" by people they don't agree with, so I don't think fb engineers are the real source of our issues in that dimension.
- baq 10y ago
  facebook engineers optimize for ad revenue, not factual accuracy. this needs to be fixed. like pg said in the article, no idea how. education is important but there's simply too much information out there and it's hard to filter the important from the insignificant, not to mention truth from falsehood. there's a need for tech that could assist those tasks with minimal barrier to entry. problem is there's no market for this... yet.
JBReefer 10y ago
I respectfully disagree - after the election, my liberal friends filled my timeline with screeds about the death of America and minorities, while my conservative friends messaged me privately in celebration. I didn't see a single pro-Trump post all day. As a centrist, the level of vitriol was very shocking, and it did not come from the party you'd expect.
- harveywi 10y ago
  > my liberal friends filled my timeline with screeds about the death of America and minorities, while my conservative friends messaged me privately in celebration. I didn't see a single pro-Trump post all day. This is an example of "preference falsification". The energy (in "the ability of a system to do work" sense) of aptly-named social media is social pressure.
ethanbond 10y ago
What? People block that shit. Go outside and talk to a person at the grocery store if you want to burst your bubble. News, ads, friend suggestions etc. are all designed to be as non-confrontational as possible. To fit into your world view so neatly you don't even know that your perception of reality outside of Facebook, when filtered through Facebook, is actually tailored to you.
brockvond 10y ago
yeah I disagree. there's NO place on the internet that forces you into another "bubble"... on reddit i can avoid r/all entirely... make a custom homepage... block users.. on twitter if someone bothers me i can block them... if i get tired of festival spunyons telling me how spiritual they are on facebook i can unfollow and remain friends... i can get browser plugins to block entire concepts and names... e.g. SO many people i know installed facebook purity just to block Trump or Clinton on facebook... posts, news, groups all that. I can block game invites (i do)... on top of the user options the algorithms are totally setup to provide me with content I will enjoy based on content I have marked as "affirmative" or "enjoyed". with that being said... Facebook's feed is too influential but that's not facebook's fault. People want confirmation bias and the internet is prob best at providing it. there are exceptions, trending topics... big stories always get through... but for example... on facebook I buy things from a lot of small business and now i know how they feel about politics and now one has the real hard choice of... do i unfollow and miss sales or do i tolerate the small annoyance... real soft struggle stuff.

by ef4 10y ago

ipostonthisacc 10y ago

Except Facebook and Google filter what you see based on your views, likes etc. so the exact opposite is true.

ChicagoBoy11 10y ago

I'll push back against this. It seems to me that Facebook makes it more challenging for you to filter through that bubble. Their algorithms are tailored to get me to engage with the site and keep my session alive as long as possible. Not surprisingly, I'm sure that it will present me more with things that please me -- either things I agree with or people backlashing against things I disagree with -- than not. As a user, it seems it takes an extra level of awareness and conscious work on my part to fight against their ranking algorithms. It does not present to me a snapshot of my social network as it is; it presents me a snapshot of my social network that seeks to maximize its perceived relevance to me at any given moment. That isn't the same thing. Having said that, I think it is too easy to fault them for this. I'm an educator, and I think the only meaningful weapon against this is educating people on the forces involved. I'm also painfully aware that as I write this, an enormous swath of my fb friends are asking to be "unfriended" by people they don't agree with, so I don't think fb engineers are the real source of our issues in that dimension.

baq 10y ago
facebook engineers optimize for ad revenue, not factual accuracy. this needs to be fixed. like pg said in the article, no idea how. education is important but there's simply too much information out there and it's hard to filter the important from the insignificant, not to mention truth from falsehood. there's a need for tech that could assist those tasks with minimal barrier to entry. problem is there's no market for this... yet.

JBReefer 10y ago

I respectfully disagree - after the election, my liberal friends filled my timeline with screeds about the death of America and minorities, while my conservative friends messaged me privately in celebration. I didn't see a single pro-Trump post all day. As a centrist, the level of vitriol was very shocking, and it did not come from the party you'd expect.

harveywi 10y ago
> my liberal friends filled my timeline with screeds about the death of America and minorities, while my conservative friends messaged me privately in celebration. I didn't see a single pro-Trump post all day. This is an example of "preference falsification". The energy (in "the ability of a system to do work" sense) of aptly-named social media is social pressure.

ethanbond 10y ago

What? People block that shit. Go outside and talk to a person at the grocery store if you want to burst your bubble. News, ads, friend suggestions etc. are all designed to be as non-confrontational as possible. To fit into your world view so neatly you don't even know that your perception of reality outside of Facebook, when filtered through Facebook, is actually tailored to you.

brockvond 10y ago

yeah I disagree. there's NO place on the internet that forces you into another "bubble"... on reddit i can avoid r/all entirely... make a custom homepage... block users.. on twitter if someone bothers me i can block them... if i get tired of festival spunyons telling me how spiritual they are on facebook i can unfollow and remain friends... i can get browser plugins to block entire concepts and names... e.g. SO many people i know installed facebook purity just to block Trump or Clinton on facebook... posts, news, groups all that. I can block game invites (i do)... on top of the user options the algorithms are totally setup to provide me with content I will enjoy based on content I have marked as "affirmative" or "enjoyed". with that being said... Facebook's feed is too influential but that's not facebook's fault. People want confirmation bias and the internet is prob best at providing it. there are exceptions, trending topics... big stories always get through... but for example... on facebook I buy things from a lot of small business and now i know how they feel about politics and now one has the real hard choice of... do i unfollow and miss sales or do i tolerate the small annoyance... real soft struggle stuff.