In “the Filter Bubble,” Eli Pariser addresses how serious personalization of the internet has become by tackling many levels of the issue, in which he reveals how people implicitly and explicitly provide and receive information. People have learned to enjoy the benefits and convenience of the services that large internet giants have provided them; even Pariser himself admits that he enjoys using Pandora, Netflix, and Facebook daily (218). However, these internet companies have strategically implemented several methods that have placed a constraint on the type of information that an individual can acquire and confiscating the opportunity for that individual to diversify his or her knowledge of the world. Sadly, the same people who are receiving these services are the ones suffering the consequences. Fortunately, in chapter 8, Pariser introduces several solutions to the issue regarding personalization, which has crippled information society for many years. He suggests ideas of what individuals, companies, governments and citizens can do in efforts to work cohesively and repair the damage that has been done.
Although many of his solutions are sure to be effective, none of them seem realistic to me. No matter what, people will always want to access the sites that they wish to access (because that’s just human behavior), companies want to generate as much revenue as possible and increase their market share by any means, and governments want companies to make large sums of money in order to contribute to the growth of their economies. However, out of the many solutions that he mentions, I found his solution of what companies should do to be his strongest argument. Pariser suggests that “the new filterers can start by making their filter systems more transparent to the public, so that its possible to have a discussion about how their exercising their responsibilities in the first places” (229). Companies need to be more transparent about the data that they acquire from their users and what they do with that data so that people understand how the system works. On page 230 Pariser compares the number of searches conducted via Google and Bing. He says that, although Bings algorithms are highly competitive with Google’s, people still tend to use Google more because the extraordinary number of people that trust Google’s services. Because of this, Google has an obligation to it’s users, in that it should inform them of its filtering systems.
I believe Pariser’s weakest suggestion is the one that he suggests of what the individuals should do. He mentions that people should “stop being a mouse” (223), meaning that they should explore different avenues of the World Wide Web instead of constantly following the same path. This is much easier said than done. There are TOO many people out there are ill-informed of the filter bubble. Also, no matter how cautious a person is, the algorithms will always be there, in which case, it is up to the new generation of creators to change the way the internet influences information society.
