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I'll take good recommendations, thank you. I'm surprised so few people here have picked up on the fact that "filter bubble" is a rhetorical trick about as obvi

I'll take good recommendations, thank you. I'm surprised so few people here have picked up on the fact that "filter bubble" is a rhetorical trick about as obvious as the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" dichotomy. People like getting good recommendations, and they'll always like them. "Filter bubbles" are here to stay.

stcredzero 8y ago
Good recommendations are like a convenient browser that comes with your OS. The problems come in when it's just one company that has the public locked in to their particular solution.
- davidivadavid 8y ago
  What problems?
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    IE 6
dasil003 8y ago
Sure, we all want good recommendations, but how do we define "good"? I see some obvious problems with the way tech recommendations are playing out that have nothing to do with the filter bubble issue. First, we are outsourcing recommendations to profit-driven corporations. At best, the recommendations I want to see will be mixed with the ones advertisers want me to see. Revenue expectations of social media companies currently ensure this is a non-trivial issue with no easy middle ground. Even assuming the recommendations are reasonably good, you still have the problem that these ML-type recommendations require massive datasets and therefore it naturally gravitates towards a winner-take-all situation. Having one giant borg of a recommendation engine is bad. We are replacing a rich tapestry of individual word-of-mouth and small-scale communication channels with a massive mono-culture. Scalability is worshipped in tech companies (it's great for getting rich!), but it's not a inherently a good thing. In nature we find diversity trumps scalability, and I feel the same way about culture.
- aldermeer 8y ago
  Google News claims to include other sources in a story's feed, to expose the readership to other points of view. That sounds like a great way to burst the "social media bubble".

stcredzero 8y ago

Good recommendations are like a convenient browser that comes with your OS. The problems come in when it's just one company that has the public locked in to their particular solution.

davidivadavid 8y ago
What problems?
- stcredzero 8y ago
  IE 6

dasil003 8y ago

Sure, we all want good recommendations, but how do we define "good"? I see some obvious problems with the way tech recommendations are playing out that have nothing to do with the filter bubble issue. First, we are outsourcing recommendations to profit-driven corporations. At best, the recommendations I want to see will be mixed with the ones advertisers want me to see. Revenue expectations of social media companies currently ensure this is a non-trivial issue with no easy middle ground. Even assuming the recommendations are reasonably good, you still have the problem that these ML-type recommendations require massive datasets and therefore it naturally gravitates towards a winner-take-all situation. Having one giant borg of a recommendation engine is bad. We are replacing a rich tapestry of individual word-of-mouth and small-scale communication channels with a massive mono-culture. Scalability is worshipped in tech companies (it's great for getting rich!), but it's not a inherently a good thing. In nature we find diversity trumps scalability, and I feel the same way about culture.

aldermeer 8y ago
Google News claims to include other sources in a story's feed, to expose the readership to other points of view. That sounds like a great way to burst the "social media bubble".