4 ms·

Ask HN: Escaping Filter Bubbles

8 points by fluxinflex 4y ago

I was wondering what are some strategies to get out ones filter bubble? Are there any tools that provide insights into the boundaries of a filter bubble? I've been experimenting with a mindmap to discover what I have been focusing on, it kind of works. What have others done?

ilaksh 4y ago
https://www.improvethenews.org/ https://www.improvethenews.org/ worked on/advocated for by Tegmark from MIT.
- fluxinflex 4y ago
  Thanks for the link it does seem they provide broad views. What I am looking for is more how to identify ones inbuilt filter bubble, a way to map ones reading/listening/watching/.../input habits and the resulting bubble that one builds oneself.
logicalmonster 4y ago
Define a filter bubble and what this precisely means. Regardless of your news watching habits, I think you mainly have to watch out for 2 things. 1) You clearly understand the biases of your own news sources. If you are entertained by watching a lot of Alex Jones for instance, that's fine as long as you understand that he has his own way of looking at the world and you might get incomplete information on some topic by not looking at other sources of information and opinion. Similarly, if you like watching a lot of Rachel Maddow, great, but she's also got her own set of viewpoints and ways of looking at the world and you might not always get the full picture on a topic by hearing her. This rule applies to anybody and every news organization. Everybody and everything has their biases, some more or less so than others. You should be especially vigilant for bullshit when you don't know somebody's bias, and/or they claim to be unbiased. To me, somebody like Alex Jones whose bias you know is a lot less potentially damaging to society than some news source that claims to be unbiased, but actually are biased just as any human is. 2) You are familiar with the arguments and viewpoints of the opposite side. Coming from a libertarian perspective, I'd work hard to try and understand others' viewpoints and arguments against my positions. But in my experience, sometimes the people screaming loudest against many of my views were the ones who were wholly ignorant on the other side's arguments. Because they didn't understand anything outside of their very limited bubble, they tended to only comprehend many of my positions only through lenses like "hating the poor" or "racism".
- pornel 4y ago
  You also need to consider the both-sides fallacy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance Because having two opposing views on something doesn’t automatically mean both are equally biased in their own ways. If you have e.g. a reviewed scientific report on an issue, you will not be better informed if you augment that information with a rant from a bumbling fool.
  - kelipso 4y ago
    A problem with the both-sides fallacy that I've generally seen on the internet is it gets used very often to ignore one side of the argument however legitimate, good etc that argument is. It's basically a nice mechanism to paint the other side as a bunch of nutjobs instead of considering their arguments.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    > If you have e.g. a reviewed scientific report on an issue, you will not be better informed if you augment that information with a rant from a bumbling fool. 1) The scientific method is a great thing. But given how many peer-reviewed scientific papers are not reproducible, having a healthy skepticism of all forms of knowledge you see might be wise. 2) It's sometimes a challenge to look past our own biases, but wisdom can come from many sources. A deranged looking country bumpkin can give a raging rant that's 80% illogical nonsense, but he might come up with 1 connecting idea that nobody else thinks of due to a unique vantage point and life experience.
    - pornel 4y ago
      No, it’s not. That’s the point. You may have flawed or incomplete information, but that does not make contrarian reactionary voices any more right, because truth isn’t in the “middle” between the best information available and its uninformed opposition (especially in the context of the aforementioned Alex Jones).
      - logicalmonster 4y ago

8 points by fluxinflex 4y ago

ilaksh 4y ago

https://www.improvethenews.org/ https://www.improvethenews.org/ worked on/advocated for by Tegmark from MIT.

fluxinflex 4y ago
Thanks for the link it does seem they provide broad views. What I am looking for is more how to identify ones inbuilt filter bubble, a way to map ones reading/listening/watching/.../input habits and the resulting bubble that one builds oneself.

logicalmonster 4y ago

Define a filter bubble and what this precisely means. Regardless of your news watching habits, I think you mainly have to watch out for 2 things. 1) You clearly understand the biases of your own news sources. If you are entertained by watching a lot of Alex Jones for instance, that's fine as long as you understand that he has his own way of looking at the world and you might get incomplete information on some topic by not looking at other sources of information and opinion. Similarly, if you like watching a lot of Rachel Maddow, great, but she's also got her own set of viewpoints and ways of looking at the world and you might not always get the full picture on a topic by hearing her. This rule applies to anybody and every news organization. Everybody and everything has their biases, some more or less so than others. You should be especially vigilant for bullshit when you don't know somebody's bias, and/or they claim to be unbiased. To me, somebody like Alex Jones whose bias you know is a lot less potentially damaging to society than some news source that claims to be unbiased, but actually are biased just as any human is. 2) You are familiar with the arguments and viewpoints of the opposite side. Coming from a libertarian perspective, I'd work hard to try and understand others' viewpoints and arguments against my positions. But in my experience, sometimes the people screaming loudest against many of my views were the ones who were wholly ignorant on the other side's arguments. Because they didn't understand anything outside of their very limited bubble, they tended to only comprehend many of my positions only through lenses like "hating the poor" or "racism".

pornel 4y ago
You also need to consider the both-sides fallacy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance Because having two opposing views on something doesn’t automatically mean both are equally biased in their own ways. If you have e.g. a reviewed scientific report on an issue, you will not be better informed if you augment that information with a rant from a bumbling fool.
- kelipso 4y ago
  A problem with the both-sides fallacy that I've generally seen on the internet is it gets used very often to ignore one side of the argument however legitimate, good etc that argument is. It's basically a nice mechanism to paint the other side as a bunch of nutjobs instead of considering their arguments.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  > If you have e.g. a reviewed scientific report on an issue, you will not be better informed if you augment that information with a rant from a bumbling fool. 1) The scientific method is a great thing. But given how many peer-reviewed scientific papers are not reproducible, having a healthy skepticism of all forms of knowledge you see might be wise. 2) It's sometimes a challenge to look past our own biases, but wisdom can come from many sources. A deranged looking country bumpkin can give a raging rant that's 80% illogical nonsense, but he might come up with 1 connecting idea that nobody else thinks of due to a unique vantage point and life experience.
  - pornel 4y ago
    No, it’s not. That’s the point. You may have flawed or incomplete information, but that does not make contrarian reactionary voices any more right, because truth isn’t in the “middle” between the best information available and its uninformed opposition (especially in the context of the aforementioned Alex Jones).
    - logicalmonster 4y ago