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The problem with these filter bubbles is the fact that entities like Facebook encourage them and they are fundamental to their platform. To increase engagement

The problem with these filter bubbles is the fact that entities like Facebook encourage them and they are fundamental to their platform. To increase engagement in these platorms makes it really easy to just create a filter bubble. When Facebook becomes your primary information source you begin to unfollow or shut off topics. Since you seek social approval from your friends it makes you want to argue less with others. Also, gaining likes encourages you to perpetuate the filter bubble with a narrative that your friends approve. In contrast when you consume news from news outlets although you may have a bias on which news outlet you read its quite different in the fact that they may publish things that aren't necessarily found in your filter bubble. On the other hand most people don't like having their core beliefs challenged in any way. If you present them that information they are more likely to just not listen. This is what fake news targets because no one in your filter bubble will challenge your beliefs and they can tell you whatever you want to hear.

davidivadavid 9y ago
It's funny because I think exactly the opposite. One of the main reasons I don't read my Facebook feed is because it's bombarded by content I find infuriating for a variety of reasons (lots of low-value entertainment-related stuff, political content I don't agree with, etc.). I wish Facebook were a filter bubble that only served me content I like, then I wouldn't have to curate my RSS feeds myself.
- rhizome 9y ago
  [640x480 gradient image with pithy sentence]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- T-hawk 9y ago
  To make a Facebook feed palatable, embrace the "Hide All From" option. Whenever you notice a piece of junk from a source page name that you've seen before, just kill everything from that source. Most chronic oversharers are only really broadcasting content from fairly few sources (the 90% rule) and it's not all that hard to mute most of it that way. I spend 10 minutes a day reading through the feed and get most of the interesting personal news from people I actually want to seee, and little of the crap. For the worst oversharers, unfollow them.
  - patrickdavey 9y ago
    Thereby enforcing your own filter bubble ;) I have one "friend" in my feed, former colleague, and he continually shares all sorts of things that I don't remotely agree with & find pretty racist, Islamophobic etc. However, I keep him in my feed just to remind me what other people are thinking about, believing and sharing. I'm continually tempted to block him though.
    - castis 9y ago
      Good on you for this. I firmly believe that behavior makes you more open-minded. We as a society should encourage this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Swizec 9y ago
> Since you seek social approval from your friends it makes you want to argue less with others. Since gaining entry into the US middle/professional class I have been informed numerous times that disagreeing with one's friends is impolite. I miss the times when I could say things like "No, what you're saying is dumb" without drawing shocked stares. It was a simpler often better time. I'm told it is particularly inappropriate to disagree with your girlfriend's mum and tell her she's spouting rubbish. Especially at a cordial thanksgiving dinner. But if you can't argue with people and test each other's ideas, then what's the point of keeping them around?
- knieveltech 9y ago
  If your friends think you're being rude when you offer a counterpoint to their opinions it's time to find better friends.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    > If your friends think you're being rude when you offer a counterpoint to their opinions it's time to find better friends. While in general friends should be able to disagree amicably, I wouldn't automatically jump to this conclusion; check how you're presenting your "counterpoint" first.
- gozur88 9y ago
  I argue with my friends all the time. To the point one of the wives threw up her hands and said her husband and I were like an old married couple. But FB is different. It's like being in a big ballroom with all of your friends and acquaintances standing around watching you argue with one of them at the top of your lungs. It feels somehow boorish.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Since gaining entry into the US middle/professional class I have been informed numerous times that disagreeing with one's friends is impolite. > I miss the times when I could say things like "No, what you're saying is dumb" without drawing shocked stares. I think you may be mistaking cultural norms about the manner of expression of disagreement with a cultural norms against disagreement generally. “I think, if you consider X, Y, and Z, that you would find that it's more case A than case B” may get a different reaction than “No, B is dumb.”
lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
Much like another reply to this comment; your sentiment is one I've heard frequently, but never comes along with any supporting data. It certainly feels like a reasonable statement; but anecdotally doesn't seem to jive with what I and friends have seen. Furthermore, I find it hard to accept that if there are bubbles on social media they are materially different than the natural geographic and social bubbles from the pre-internet age. Again another topic light on actual data to make more informed conclusions.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  You make a good point. I created my hypothesis based on my own anecdotal information. I think I should try doing some community analysis on a social network to test my hypothesis. https://snap.stanford.edu/data/ https://snap.stanford.edu/data/ looks like a good data source to try this out.
- utexaspunk 9y ago
  Eh, people have lots of friends that hold different beliefs than them. The problem with Facebook is it offers no way of registering your disagreement beyond commenting and starting a conversation which will have no depth because the lack of real comment threading renders any real dialogue impossible. Since most people don't feel like repeatedly getting involved in pointless debates with their friends, and are frustrated seeing posts they disagree with without any simple way of voicing their disapproval, they either use Facebook's tools to filter out those posts or just unfollow that friend entirely. The most misguided consumer and propagator of fake news will still mostly just see likes of their friends who are also misguided. They might get a brave friend chiming in here or there to disagree, but their comments are easily dismissed because they will have no depth. The majority of their friends may disagree, but they'll never know because those who disagree (if they haven't filtered/unfollowed them already) have no good way to show that they disagree. Facebook as it is currently designed mostly just serves to affirm whatever the user wants to believe. That's where the bubble effect comes from.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    You can avoid a conversation and post in opposition. You can suggest dissent by "like-ing" with a sad or angry face. If you make a post with an opposing view, or share someone else's then your friend group can use that opposing post to show their dissent for the initial post.
Balgair 9y ago
So let's try to fix it. How though? The only (poor) idea I have is to have a 'value' button or something. Click it if you think the comment has 'value' but is not necessarily something you 'like'. Yeah, I know, it'll be gamed and just turn into yet another thing to express downvotes with, but maybe it'll work. Any other ideas? Still, FB is totally dominant and they could change it in a day if they wanted to and people would come back without any other issues.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  I don't know if you can fix it. Part of the problem is that people don't want to be challenged with opposing views and that is part of the human condition.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    It's this just assertion or do you have backing for it. It's certainly "nice" to think that "people just bury their heads and that's why I can't convince then of my far superior position", but evidence?
  - smsm42 9y ago
    I think if we agreed that not being tolerant to opinion diversity is the part of human condition we would want to have less of, we'd be moving in a right direction. After all, there are many parts of human condition that we view as negative and are reasonably successful in controlling and reducing them. E.g. if somebody has something you want, we no longer OK with clubbing that person over the head and taking it. There are many animal and other base urges that we keep under control with reasonable degree of success. Maybe we could do it here too, if we only tried?
geebee 9y ago
I read pretty widely in what I would call mainstream media, progressive and conservative (within limits). I don't want to get my news from Facebook, so I routinely ask to "see less" of almost all politics, especially regarding Trump. There's almost never anything I wouldn't have learned about by reading mainstream news. Here's the remarkable thing - this doesn't seem to be affecting my feed at all. I get as much politics as ever. I couldn't tell you how many times I've informed Facebook not to show me Trump news, and it's still there, lots of it. I'm starting to wonder if maybe pushing the "show less" button is akin to replying to a spammer to please don't send any spam, or perhaps pushing on a button next to a crosswalk that actually doesn't do anything, but makes people less likely to jaywalk by giving them the illusion of control. Why am I even on the site? Well, I'm on Facebook because I like hearing about the various musical, theater, and arts events any of my friends and acquaintances are involved in. I'm not delighted that Facebook essentially controls our communication with each other - there was a time this tended to happen on the open web, rather than within the walls of a corporation, but I guess that's a topic for another day.
- chrisallenlane 9y ago
  > Here's the remarkable thing - this doesn't seem to be affecting my feed at all. I get as much politics as ever. I couldn't tell you how many times I've informed Facebook not to show me Trump news, and it's still there, lots of it. During the peak toxicity of the election cycle, I unfollowed a lot of sites/sources/people on Facebook. For a while, it worked. Eventually, though, I simply lost that ability. For the last few months, if I click "unlike" or "unfollow" on some source I'd like to be rid of, nothing happens. I'm literally unable to unfollow content on Facebook now. If you Google around, you'll see that this is a common problem that people have been reporting for years. This makes me wonder if this is a bug, or if, perhaps, the Facebook algorithm simply refuses to allow me to have fewer than N number of connections to other nodes or something.
- mistermann 9y ago
  http://www.fbpurity.com/ http://www.fbpurity.com/

davidivadavid 9y ago

It's funny because I think exactly the opposite. One of the main reasons I don't read my Facebook feed is because it's bombarded by content I find infuriating for a variety of reasons (lots of low-value entertainment-related stuff, political content I don't agree with, etc.). I wish Facebook were a filter bubble that only served me content I like, then I wouldn't have to curate my RSS feeds myself.

rhizome 9y ago
[640x480 gradient image with pithy sentence]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
T-hawk 9y ago
To make a Facebook feed palatable, embrace the "Hide All From" option. Whenever you notice a piece of junk from a source page name that you've seen before, just kill everything from that source. Most chronic oversharers are only really broadcasting content from fairly few sources (the 90% rule) and it's not all that hard to mute most of it that way. I spend 10 minutes a day reading through the feed and get most of the interesting personal news from people I actually want to seee, and little of the crap. For the worst oversharers, unfollow them.
- patrickdavey 9y ago
  Thereby enforcing your own filter bubble ;) I have one "friend" in my feed, former colleague, and he continually shares all sorts of things that I don't remotely agree with & find pretty racist, Islamophobic etc. However, I keep him in my feed just to remind me what other people are thinking about, believing and sharing. I'm continually tempted to block him though.
  - castis 9y ago
    Good on you for this. I firmly believe that behavior makes you more open-minded. We as a society should encourage this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Swizec 9y ago

> Since you seek social approval from your friends it makes you want to argue less with others. Since gaining entry into the US middle/professional class I have been informed numerous times that disagreeing with one's friends is impolite. I miss the times when I could say things like "No, what you're saying is dumb" without drawing shocked stares. It was a simpler often better time. I'm told it is particularly inappropriate to disagree with your girlfriend's mum and tell her she's spouting rubbish. Especially at a cordial thanksgiving dinner. But if you can't argue with people and test each other's ideas, then what's the point of keeping them around?

knieveltech 9y ago
If your friends think you're being rude when you offer a counterpoint to their opinions it's time to find better friends.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  > If your friends think you're being rude when you offer a counterpoint to their opinions it's time to find better friends. While in general friends should be able to disagree amicably, I wouldn't automatically jump to this conclusion; check how you're presenting your "counterpoint" first.
gozur88 9y ago
I argue with my friends all the time. To the point one of the wives threw up her hands and said her husband and I were like an old married couple. But FB is different. It's like being in a big ballroom with all of your friends and acquaintances standing around watching you argue with one of them at the top of your lungs. It feels somehow boorish.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Since gaining entry into the US middle/professional class I have been informed numerous times that disagreeing with one's friends is impolite. > I miss the times when I could say things like "No, what you're saying is dumb" without drawing shocked stares. I think you may be mistaking cultural norms about the manner of expression of disagreement with a cultural norms against disagreement generally. “I think, if you consider X, Y, and Z, that you would find that it's more case A than case B” may get a different reaction than “No, B is dumb.”

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago

Much like another reply to this comment; your sentiment is one I've heard frequently, but never comes along with any supporting data. It certainly feels like a reasonable statement; but anecdotally doesn't seem to jive with what I and friends have seen. Furthermore, I find it hard to accept that if there are bubbles on social media they are materially different than the natural geographic and social bubbles from the pre-internet age. Again another topic light on actual data to make more informed conclusions.

zitterbewegung 9y ago
You make a good point. I created my hypothesis based on my own anecdotal information. I think I should try doing some community analysis on a social network to test my hypothesis. https://snap.stanford.edu/data/ https://snap.stanford.edu/data/ looks like a good data source to try this out.
utexaspunk 9y ago
Eh, people have lots of friends that hold different beliefs than them. The problem with Facebook is it offers no way of registering your disagreement beyond commenting and starting a conversation which will have no depth because the lack of real comment threading renders any real dialogue impossible. Since most people don't feel like repeatedly getting involved in pointless debates with their friends, and are frustrated seeing posts they disagree with without any simple way of voicing their disapproval, they either use Facebook's tools to filter out those posts or just unfollow that friend entirely. The most misguided consumer and propagator of fake news will still mostly just see likes of their friends who are also misguided. They might get a brave friend chiming in here or there to disagree, but their comments are easily dismissed because they will have no depth. The majority of their friends may disagree, but they'll never know because those who disagree (if they haven't filtered/unfollowed them already) have no good way to show that they disagree. Facebook as it is currently designed mostly just serves to affirm whatever the user wants to believe. That's where the bubble effect comes from.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  You can avoid a conversation and post in opposition. You can suggest dissent by "like-ing" with a sad or angry face. If you make a post with an opposing view, or share someone else's then your friend group can use that opposing post to show their dissent for the initial post.

Balgair 9y ago

So let's try to fix it. How though? The only (poor) idea I have is to have a 'value' button or something. Click it if you think the comment has 'value' but is not necessarily something you 'like'. Yeah, I know, it'll be gamed and just turn into yet another thing to express downvotes with, but maybe it'll work. Any other ideas? Still, FB is totally dominant and they could change it in a day if they wanted to and people would come back without any other issues.

zitterbewegung 9y ago
I don't know if you can fix it. Part of the problem is that people don't want to be challenged with opposing views and that is part of the human condition.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  It's this just assertion or do you have backing for it. It's certainly "nice" to think that "people just bury their heads and that's why I can't convince then of my far superior position", but evidence?
- smsm42 9y ago
  I think if we agreed that not being tolerant to opinion diversity is the part of human condition we would want to have less of, we'd be moving in a right direction. After all, there are many parts of human condition that we view as negative and are reasonably successful in controlling and reducing them. E.g. if somebody has something you want, we no longer OK with clubbing that person over the head and taking it. There are many animal and other base urges that we keep under control with reasonable degree of success. Maybe we could do it here too, if we only tried?

geebee 9y ago

I read pretty widely in what I would call mainstream media, progressive and conservative (within limits). I don't want to get my news from Facebook, so I routinely ask to "see less" of almost all politics, especially regarding Trump. There's almost never anything I wouldn't have learned about by reading mainstream news. Here's the remarkable thing - this doesn't seem to be affecting my feed at all. I get as much politics as ever. I couldn't tell you how many times I've informed Facebook not to show me Trump news, and it's still there, lots of it. I'm starting to wonder if maybe pushing the "show less" button is akin to replying to a spammer to please don't send any spam, or perhaps pushing on a button next to a crosswalk that actually doesn't do anything, but makes people less likely to jaywalk by giving them the illusion of control. Why am I even on the site? Well, I'm on Facebook because I like hearing about the various musical, theater, and arts events any of my friends and acquaintances are involved in. I'm not delighted that Facebook essentially controls our communication with each other - there was a time this tended to happen on the open web, rather than within the walls of a corporation, but I guess that's a topic for another day.

chrisallenlane 9y ago
> Here's the remarkable thing - this doesn't seem to be affecting my feed at all. I get as much politics as ever. I couldn't tell you how many times I've informed Facebook not to show me Trump news, and it's still there, lots of it. During the peak toxicity of the election cycle, I unfollowed a lot of sites/sources/people on Facebook. For a while, it worked. Eventually, though, I simply lost that ability. For the last few months, if I click "unlike" or "unfollow" on some source I'd like to be rid of, nothing happens. I'm literally unable to unfollow content on Facebook now. If you Google around, you'll see that this is a common problem that people have been reporting for years. This makes me wonder if this is a bug, or if, perhaps, the Facebook algorithm simply refuses to allow me to have fewer than N number of connections to other nodes or something.
mistermann 9y ago
http://www.fbpurity.com/ http://www.fbpurity.com/