Good information about how content on the Internet is "personalized" and why. There are good things about this customization but also a lot to be aware (and wary) of. ( )

Take away is that your digital history may limit your true freedom on the internet--that the internet search engines like Google will become too individualized for you and blind you to other parts of the world.
( )

يقدم نظرة ثاقبة ونقدية على الإنترنت. يضع تحت المجهر العواقب الخطيرة لجمع البيانات وطريقة استخدامها لتخصيص الإنترنت، ويكشف الأشياء التي يتم إخفاؤها في كل مرة ننقر فيها على زر البحث، ولماذا لا يجب أن تؤخذ نتائج هذا البحث في ظاهرها.
مثير للاهتمام رغم قدم المعلومات والاحصائيات المدرجة فيه. فخلال السنوات العشر التي تلت صدور الكتاب تضخمت "فقاعة الترشيح" التي يتحدث عنها المؤلف بشكل أسي مع تزايد كثافة المحتوى وتطور خوارزميات جمع البيانات وتقديم الاقتراحات. ( )

I knew the basic information about the personalized web, but this book is a great explanation on how the internet changes itself based on who is looking at it.Very informative, a good read, and only made me a little bit paranoid about what information is out there about me. Go read this book and excuse me while I change my Facebook privacy settings and disable cookies. ( )

Great research, even if sometimes the apocalyptic "the filter bubble will end the world as we know it" every three paragraphs got a little tiring. ( )

good book, scary stats

A very scary book about the hold that large tech companies have over you and your data! Large companies see you as a source of advertising income, and that anything that you thing that you own, they feel that they have a claim on. ( )

Required reading, I should think, for understanding the internet. I think I've had 40 or 50 discussions about ideas in this book. The ideas are in bite-sized chunks, so one can mull one, and share it easily. For example: "Eric Schmidet likes to point out that if you recorded all human communication from the dawn of time to 2003, it'd take up about 5 billion gigibytes of storage space. Now we're creating that much data every two days." ... "Inevitably this gives way to what Steve Rubel calls the attention crash." (p.11) Try sharing that idea and see what a great conversation it sparks!

Well researched - a hundred ideas put into a framework with an engaging writing style.

My own personal notes for worthy points of departure:
p.11, 43, 50, 69, 82, 89, 101, 150, 173, 211-215 - core of the book, 219, 222 Danah Boyd "We are at risk of the psychological equivalent of obesity", 236-237, 243.




( )

Very good companion to Dragnet Nation. A good read and timely. ( )

written in 2011 and still very applicable in 2018! ( )

While this undoubtedly an important book, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading a five year old book about the internet, which in internet years, is really about 35 years old. I mean, there's the line "Imagine it's the 2016 (US Presidential) election." Um, sure, I'll try to imagine that far distant event, although I'm not sure any of us will like what I see.

I'm not at the forefront of data-based knowledge but I presume that much of what Pariser speaks of is out of date, sometimes positively laughably. Still, those more intelligent than me (ie. almost all of you) will probably get much more out of "The Filter Bubble" than me. ( )

Eye opening on a very important topic. I would recommend anyone and everyone to become familiar with the issues discussed in this book. ( )

The topic here is crucial, and I thank Eli Pariser for entering into the conversation with a well-researched book instead of just a post on social media. I love the flow of the book's topics, but the sections in some chapters get a little bit loaded with definitions of expert lingo or snippets of examples which are inserted every few sentences. But when he is commenting on where this all might be taking us and how we can act within it, I think this is where Pariser really hits his stride in this book. The lingo and research are interesting, but this is a crucial situation and he writes with non-alarmist urgency about our need to be aware and active in how this all shakes out. ( )

A thought-provoking, if somewhat repetitive, examination of the notion of the intenet 'filter bubble', whereby increasing (automated) personalisation traps you in self-referencing feedback loops. Pariser's thesis is that this dulls you to broader social concerns, and that you're less likely to be exposed to something genuinely new (and possibly even contrary) to your way of thinking. I find this argument fairly compelling, although I also have to recognise that this is hardly unique to the internet, as all media and information sources are curated to some extent (yes, even libraries, says the librarian). However, the degree to which we’re being presented with information supposedly honed to our personal interests is unprecedented, and that thought makes me itchy. I find the book's real importance lies in its reminders that so much of our personal information is held in the hands of a few powerful companies, and more often than not, we simply don't know what that information is and what they're doing with it. ( )

A thought-provoking look at how personalized internet services are shaping our reality without our knowledge. ( )

Eli Pariser offers not just a diagnosis of a problem but also some ideas for making a start at addressing it. I especially liked the suggestions for individuals he includes in his final chapter along with the suggestions for businesses and governments. This book will change the way you interact with Facebook, Google, and the internet as a whole. ( )

Har inte läst hela boken ännu. Den handlar om hur rekommendationssystem styr oss till att bli ekon av våra egna röster. I filterbubblan kan vi inte se vad vi borde se, saker som är kontroversiella för oss och strider mot vår världsbild.

The book seriously wandered from the original premise -- to include philosophical discussions and LOTS of ink spent on targeting people for ads. Did learn a few things, so would consider worth the time spent reading. ( )

If anyone has told you recently that the information you want is in "the second link that comes up for X on Google," but it's not, you already know the first part of what Pariser is going to tell you. Much of this book addresses aspects of the issues of filtering, which means monitoring, and how our online behavior and data may be used not only to tailor what we see, but to commodetize us. Pariser does a good job of demonstrating that a filtered web does not flatten access to information, but compartmentalizes it. At the same time, he represents the necessity of some filtering, given the crush of data. If you read hard science fiction you'll find this confirmatory; if you tend to be naive about what you post on Facebook, it may usefully increase your paranoia. ( )

The central message in The Filter Bubble is that the search algorithms used by websites like Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, and (most perniciously, Pariser argues) Google are incredibly good at showing us content that similar to content we’ve already looked at. The cumulative effect of all this, Pariser argues, is that if we do nothing we wind up living in a tightly circumscribed online world filled with information, ideas, and outlooks already familiar to us: the “filter bubble” of the title. Pariser also has reservations about the ways in which companies like Google and Facebook gather, store, and use information about us: the raw material their algorithms use to decide what we want to see. Such privacy concerns, though, rest on ground already mapped by other writers, going back to Vance Packard and The Naked Society in 1964. Pariser’s central – and far more novel – theme is the perniciousness of the filter bubble itself. The internet shows us what we want to see, not what we need to see, and that deeply frustrates him.

What frustrated me, for virtually the entire length of the book, is that Pariser seems far more concerned with warning readers that they’re on the road that leads to filter-bubble Hell than with asking why that particular route might have seemed – or might still seem – more attractive than the other routes available. He never stops, for example, to consider why filters feel like essential tools when exploring even a narrow, bounded world like Facebook (much less the web as a whole): A hyper-abundance of information, a horrific signal-to-noise ratio, and users with limited time and shaky information- literacy skills. Filtered search results and tailored news feeds have flourished, in part, because people find them useful and efficient.

Pariser, who wants them to return a higher proportion of results that aren’t just what the user would expect (and thus want) is thus in the odd position of arguing that search engines would be improved if they were – in the eyes of most users – made less efficient. Arguing that efficiency isn’t an absolute virtue is far from absurd (it works for hand-dipped milkshakes, artisan bread, and craft-brewed beer) but it’s hard to see it being used to sell lifeboat bilge pumps or body armor. Or search engines. Some things, you just want to be boringly efficient.

The premise underlying Pariser’s case for less-tightly-filtered, (and thus seemingly less-efficient) search engines and news feeds isn’t absurd, either. It’s that “efficiency” in search isn’t giving the user the information they want, it’s giving them the information they need – the information that will make them better informed, better able to think, and thus better able to deal with the world. It’s far from clear, however, that an internet search engine programmed (by others) to give them that is any more desirable than one programmed (by others) to give them just what they want. It’s also far from clear that most people, if presented with that broader range of information, would not – using their own homegrown filters – immediately weed out (as “irrelevant,” “biased,” “uninteresting” or simply “wrong”) precisely the information that Pariser is so determined to provide them with. ( )

The very conversational tone doesn't detract at all from what I consider an extremely important project. ( )

In a world of warm and fuzzy internet giants such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, etc., all may not be well according to the author of the new book, The Filter Bubble. While we theoretically have access to more than ever, what we access, algorithmically derived from our own previous click history, is actually limited in scope. Due to “embedded filtering” our own “personalized internet” purportedly limits one’s ability to encounter new ideas, serendipitous discoveries, and opportunities to learn. Where the internet initially was rooted in anonymity, the filter bubble creates a homogenous online environment where privacy is but an illusion. In an apparent twist on selling our souls to the devil, these free internet-based services use personal histories, preferences, and data without our explicit knowledge or approval to extend their power, control, and profit-margin. Certainly alarmist, this book is food for thought for creatures of habit though technological determinists are likely to see it as a false alarm. ( )

If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.

Attributed to a commenter on the Internet and oft-quoted by LT’s Tim Spaulding, that line lays the foundation of half of this book (thematic half, not structural): that virtually every website you visit collects, compiles and integrates your personal data and then uses or sells it for commercial purpose. Google and Facebook are particularly vilified: Google captures your searches and result-link clicks; Facebook doesn’t have to capture data, users provide it voluminously.

The other half of the book is the stuff of the title -- that the Internet increasingly uses that collected data to tailor itself to you, creating an online space that is your own little filtered bubble. Used to be, you could Google something and tell someone to click the third link on the first page -- those “Page rankings” (named after Google’s Larry Page) having been based on what was most relevant to the whole of Internet users. But since 2009, Google searches are individualized and ranked according to what’s most relevant to you, i.e. what you’re most likely to click on. Google yourself and you won’t get the results I get for you. Google a controversial topic and you’ll get results in line with what you already know; same with the prioritization of your Facebook feeds. Online (and increasingly offline), you are what you click on the web; you are what you share there or link to … did you know that your “real life” credit-worthiness may be affected by the credit-worthiness of your Facebook friends?

Pariser acknowledges that media has always been filtered (network news and newspapers) and that at least with the Internet, you can go find what you don’t know … as long as you know you don’t know it; stumbling on “unknown unknowns” is harder. But he riles against the lack of transparency in data collection and cautions that Internet filtering puts techies in charge of the dialogue and discourse that create society. That reminds me of Edward Tufte’s caution in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information: “Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.”

If I recall correctly (I listened via audiobook), Pariser suggests there is little solution other than regulation; he offers a couple suggestions to mitigate, for example setting your web browser to delete cookies/history each time it closes.

The book is revelatory. It or another book on the topic is required reading for every person who goes online. ( )

Must read. Check out other reviews.
an important read. ( )

An interesting look at how the web is changing with the push for 'personalization' leading the way; a push that is reducing the 'World' in 'World Wide Web' to 'access'. We can all access the web but we don't all see the same content even if we are all on the same page!

The author argues for the need to pressure Google, Facebook and the other big internet players on transparency; we need to know exactly how what we see is being 'personalized'; just what personal data they're holding on us and who else has access to all or part of that data. Whether we'll get transparency or not is another matter.

All corporations 'tend to their own good', any public good they generate is a collateral benefit, and, like collateral damage, is 'just business' although in this case (and maybe in all cases) IT'S PERSONAL. The information collected by the various sites is our personal data and is being selected and stored based on the personal decisions of a small handful of people. Decisions that impact literally billions of us everyday, yet most of us are completely unaware that the same Google search will return different results for different people. Or that Facebook news feeds ignore many a 'friends' updates.

One thing the book does make abundantly clear: everything we do on the Web and, increasingly, off the web, is being tracked, stored and used by someone to their gain and, potentially, our loss not just of personal privacy but of a collective civil society. If all we see on the web is our own reflection what a small, dull world it will be. ( )