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Internet usage starts with users querying information they want, and services learning/adapting to deliver information in a format/context based on their activi

Internet usage starts with users querying information they want, and services learning/adapting to deliver information in a format/context based on their activity. This has created some stellar search tools, a personalized network of services and communities available to people, and made the internet a paradise for new content from all over the world. Despite that all the information in the world is available to us, we only seek out what we want to see/hear/read and then get fed new information based on those queries. It doesn't lead to free exchange of ideas and values, it has created polarized societies where we are digitally segregated by our own sense of identity and community. People talk a lot about the political side of this, the "echo chambers" online. But I think it's worse than that. We see racial segregation on Twitter, feedback loops of content on YouTube that reinforce themselves, news outlets tailoring their content for users that reach them from their own site and optimizing for usage metrics that feed usage metrics... and we all are in love with it. It reminds me of Farenheit 451 in the sense that this almost-dystopia wasn't created by some fascist dictator or single-party state; we built it ourselves. We wanted it. That's not to say there isn't beauty on the internet, and we live in an era where more people talk and share and love and fight more than ever with language and ideas. It's just a strange departure from where most futurists thought we were going to be.

abtinf 7y ago
> It doesn't lead to free exchange of ideas and values, it has created polarized societies Technology created polarized society? Before internet search, we were better educated and understood each other better?
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at least considered failures of journalism in hindsight. In the Soviet Union they kept a tight control on the media, and Pravda was controlled by the ruling party to amplify it's message as a tool of propaganda. It would ignore inconvenient facts and stories based on their propaganda value, or if something inconvenient was too well known to ignore it would mention it only to discredit it. Today many people get most of their news from sites like Breitbart or RawStory. Doing this is voluntarily signing up for Pravda like propaganda. Yes, we have a free society and you aren't restricted to a single source of news like Pravda, but if people intentionally and voluntarily limit themselves to a site that is manipulating stories in the same way as Pravda and for the same motivations, we just have two groups of oppositely propagandized people, and of course that will increase polarization. There is no expectation that these sites would uphold journalistic standards, be generally honest beyond when it is convenient, and their bias is considered a feature.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    > Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at least considered failures of journalism in hindsight. This is part of the myth making that took hold after the New Deal, when the Establishment decided how things were going to be and made it so. If you have licensing powers over broadcast media you can use this to ensure that discussion stays inside the bounds of discourse you deem acceptable. Because these local media companies often had both broadcast and publishing arms they had a strong incentive not to piss off the regulators who could take away their broadcasting licenses. This long period of manufactured consent lasted until the people who realised it was artificial retired or died and then technology allowed more diversity of opinion. Cable and talk radio allowed many, many more voices to be heard and expanded the Overton window, bringing the US back to normal politics where people really, really hate each other unless there’s an external enemy to hate more. In the immediate post colonial period Aaron Burr killed Hamilton in a duel. In 1856 Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of Congress. Andrew Jackson was held in much the same esteem by large swathes of the US population as Trump is now. In the 1960s there were over 3,000 domestic bombings and riots and demonstrations aplenty. The media being hyper partisan is not new. What’s new is how obvious it is. It took decades for Walter Duranty’s lies about the Holodmor, the Ukrainian Holocaust to be exposed, and the Pulitzer Prize Committee still hasn’t revoked it. This for a cover up of millions of deaths in the pages of the NYT. The prestige press is no more unbiased than Mother Jones or Breitbart. https://deadline.com/2016/11/shocked-by-trump-new-york-times-finds-time-for-soul-searching-1201852490/ https://deadline.com/2016/11/shocked-by-trump-new-york-times... > For starters, it’s important to accept that the New York Times has always — or at least for many decades — been a far more editor-driven, and self-conscious, publication than many of those with which it competes. Historically, the Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you got?” > It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.
degenerate 7y ago
It's almost as if... shiny new technology can't solve the human condition. Have you tried turning it off, and on again?
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  blockchain is the obvious solution there
  - _shanecav 7y ago
    You mispelled 'Bookchin'.
- traverseda 7y ago
  I mean we've had the technology to solve the human condition since what, the 40s?
  - delogan 7y ago
    now I’m curious
    - traverseda 7y ago
      Nuclear weapons.
godelski 7y ago
> We wanted it. I'm not entirely convinced this is accurate. It definitely is in part, but not in whole. We wanted these better search tools and we like recommendation systems. But I know a lot of people are frustrated with algorithms like YouTube's recommendation system trapping them. (e.g. watch one Joe Rogan video and you get firehosed with more JRE videos). The thing is we also don't notice that this reinforcement also pushes us away from one another. But the solution sounds very similar to the solution to the complaint. People are complaining about being walled in by the algorithm (I for one am one of those people). People are asking for new suggestions. As in new topics, not just other youtubers doing the same thing. I think the difference is that it has become so obvious now that we're noticing and saying "wait, that'd too far."
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  But does Youtube's recommendation system trap you any more than old media? I remember having much the same feeling with library books. I've read 10 pages of this author's thoughts and I really want to pick up something else - but I don't have time to go to the library this week, so I guess I'm stuck reading the other 290 pages.
  - Infinitesimus 7y ago
    > I don't have time to go to the library this week ... That's a very different situation though. This is as if you went to the library and the librarian only showed you other books by that author and the books that might be (poorly) related to the one you just read. Like books with similar words in the title or books that people grabbed after that one. YouTube is pure trash for discovery 90% of the time because the algorithm is tuned for addiction : you are fed content that is designed to keep you hooked and it will always, always bias towards that because that's the business decision. I'd love to see a recommendation engine that intentionally surfaced "similar but different in key ways"
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    YouTube would decide that since you engage with that book, you want more books from that author and put those books at the top of the catalog for you.
platz 7y ago
Wanting information to be free forced companies to rely on advertising and to spy on us.
fouc 7y ago
I saw an interesting argument that we've always had the so called filter bubbles before the internet, it's only more noticeable NOW, because of public spaces like twitter.
- anorakoverflow 7y ago
  There’s a classic theory in communication science by the German researcher Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann called the “spiral of silence”[1]. It basically says that people have an idea of the general public opinion on a topic, and in case their own opinion differs too much, they will stay silent in order not to be excluded from the group. This was classically seen with the negative result that the publicly acceptable opinion may not be the same as the majority opinion, as more and more people stay silent in a kind of spiral. What we’re seeing today in online spaces is the possibility of people connecting online, forming their own bubbles of people with their own spirals – it has become much easier to sidestep the “general” spiral of silence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence
  - marchenko 7y ago
    The other side of this coin is the Preference Cascade, a concept from economics [0] wherein people formerly in a Spiral of Silence discover that their supposedly unpopular opinions actually have a reservoir of public support. After publicly remaining silent or falsifying their preferences, they suddenly switch to expressing their true preferences. This can make public opinion seem quite volatile. [0]Tmur Kuran https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

abtinf 7y ago

> It doesn't lead to free exchange of ideas and values, it has created polarized societies Technology created polarized society? Before internet search, we were better educated and understood each other better?

ltbarcly3 7y ago
Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at least considered failures of journalism in hindsight. In the Soviet Union they kept a tight control on the media, and Pravda was controlled by the ruling party to amplify it's message as a tool of propaganda. It would ignore inconvenient facts and stories based on their propaganda value, or if something inconvenient was too well known to ignore it would mention it only to discredit it. Today many people get most of their news from sites like Breitbart or RawStory. Doing this is voluntarily signing up for Pravda like propaganda. Yes, we have a free society and you aren't restricted to a single source of news like Pravda, but if people intentionally and voluntarily limit themselves to a site that is manipulating stories in the same way as Pravda and for the same motivations, we just have two groups of oppositely propagandized people, and of course that will increase polarization. There is no expectation that these sites would uphold journalistic standards, be generally honest beyond when it is convenient, and their bias is considered a feature.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at least considered failures of journalism in hindsight. This is part of the myth making that took hold after the New Deal, when the Establishment decided how things were going to be and made it so. If you have licensing powers over broadcast media you can use this to ensure that discussion stays inside the bounds of discourse you deem acceptable. Because these local media companies often had both broadcast and publishing arms they had a strong incentive not to piss off the regulators who could take away their broadcasting licenses. This long period of manufactured consent lasted until the people who realised it was artificial retired or died and then technology allowed more diversity of opinion. Cable and talk radio allowed many, many more voices to be heard and expanded the Overton window, bringing the US back to normal politics where people really, really hate each other unless there’s an external enemy to hate more. In the immediate post colonial period Aaron Burr killed Hamilton in a duel. In 1856 Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of Congress. Andrew Jackson was held in much the same esteem by large swathes of the US population as Trump is now. In the 1960s there were over 3,000 domestic bombings and riots and demonstrations aplenty. The media being hyper partisan is not new. What’s new is how obvious it is. It took decades for Walter Duranty’s lies about the Holodmor, the Ukrainian Holocaust to be exposed, and the Pulitzer Prize Committee still hasn’t revoked it. This for a cover up of millions of deaths in the pages of the NYT. The prestige press is no more unbiased than Mother Jones or Breitbart. https://deadline.com/2016/11/shocked-by-trump-new-york-times-finds-time-for-soul-searching-1201852490/ https://deadline.com/2016/11/shocked-by-trump-new-york-times... > For starters, it’s important to accept that the New York Times has always — or at least for many decades — been a far more editor-driven, and self-conscious, publication than many of those with which it competes. Historically, the Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you got?” > It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.

degenerate 7y ago

It's almost as if... shiny new technology can't solve the human condition. Have you tried turning it off, and on again?

unlinked_dll 7y ago
blockchain is the obvious solution there
- _shanecav 7y ago
  You mispelled 'Bookchin'.
traverseda 7y ago
I mean we've had the technology to solve the human condition since what, the 40s?
- delogan 7y ago
  now I’m curious
  - traverseda 7y ago
    Nuclear weapons.

godelski 7y ago

> We wanted it. I'm not entirely convinced this is accurate. It definitely is in part, but not in whole. We wanted these better search tools and we like recommendation systems. But I know a lot of people are frustrated with algorithms like YouTube's recommendation system trapping them. (e.g. watch one Joe Rogan video and you get firehosed with more JRE videos). The thing is we also don't notice that this reinforcement also pushes us away from one another. But the solution sounds very similar to the solution to the complaint. People are complaining about being walled in by the algorithm (I for one am one of those people). People are asking for new suggestions. As in new topics, not just other youtubers doing the same thing. I think the difference is that it has become so obvious now that we're noticing and saying "wait, that'd too far."

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
But does Youtube's recommendation system trap you any more than old media? I remember having much the same feeling with library books. I've read 10 pages of this author's thoughts and I really want to pick up something else - but I don't have time to go to the library this week, so I guess I'm stuck reading the other 290 pages.
- Infinitesimus 7y ago
  > I don't have time to go to the library this week ... That's a very different situation though. This is as if you went to the library and the librarian only showed you other books by that author and the books that might be (poorly) related to the one you just read. Like books with similar words in the title or books that people grabbed after that one. YouTube is pure trash for discovery 90% of the time because the algorithm is tuned for addiction : you are fed content that is designed to keep you hooked and it will always, always bias towards that because that's the business decision. I'd love to see a recommendation engine that intentionally surfaced "similar but different in key ways"
- Spooky23 7y ago
  YouTube would decide that since you engage with that book, you want more books from that author and put those books at the top of the catalog for you.

platz 7y ago

Wanting information to be free forced companies to rely on advertising and to spy on us.

fouc 7y ago

I saw an interesting argument that we've always had the so called filter bubbles before the internet, it's only more noticeable NOW, because of public spaces like twitter.

anorakoverflow 7y ago
There’s a classic theory in communication science by the German researcher Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann called the “spiral of silence”[1]. It basically says that people have an idea of the general public opinion on a topic, and in case their own opinion differs too much, they will stay silent in order not to be excluded from the group. This was classically seen with the negative result that the publicly acceptable opinion may not be the same as the majority opinion, as more and more people stay silent in a kind of spiral. What we’re seeing today in online spaces is the possibility of people connecting online, forming their own bubbles of people with their own spirals – it has become much easier to sidestep the “general” spiral of silence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence
- marchenko 7y ago
  The other side of this coin is the Preference Cascade, a concept from economics [0] wherein people formerly in a Spiral of Silence discover that their supposedly unpopular opinions actually have a reservoir of public support. After publicly remaining silent or falsifying their preferences, they suddenly switch to expressing their true preferences. This can make public opinion seem quite volatile. [0]Tmur Kuran https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580