We are the Filter Bubble

Filter Bubble search returns 149 million results. This is a first measure of how widespread the term has become over time, coined by internet activist Eli Pariser in his 2011 book, “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You”, according to which users are exposed less to conflicting viewpoints and are intellectually isolated in their own information bubble.

In the book, Pariser warns that a potential flaw of filtered search is that it “cuts us off from new ideas, topics, and important information,” and criticizes Google and Facebook for giving users “too much candy, and not enough veggies,” as he believes ” invisible algorithms that modify the web” could “limit our exposure to new information and narrow our mindset”.

Since then, over time an erroneous perception in this regard has been generated in the community also thanks to the incorrect overlapping between the filter bubble and the echo chamber, which are two different things. An echo chamber is what could happen when we are overexposed to news we like or already agree with, potentially distorting our perception of reality because we see too much of one side, not enough of the other, and we begin to think that maybe the reality is really so.

Filter Bubbles, on the other hand, describe a situation where news we don’t like or agree with is automatically filtered out and this could have the effect of narrowing what we know.

Beyond this basic misunderstanding, the impression is that the Filter Bubble is actually inherent in the nature of the vast majority of individuals. We have hardly ever seen a centre-right voter buy a centre-left newspaper. Just as we almost never have “pro-life” activists go hand in hand with those who are in favor of abortion and euthanasia. Just to exemplify concretely.

They’re coming to the topic now the results of a survey conducted by SWG at the beginning of this month on a sample of Italians representative of the adult population in our country. According to the survey, 60% of Italians consider at least in part, if not entirely, a waste of time to discuss with people who have different ideas from their own. Results that leave no room for doubt as to what the prevailing attitude is to withdraw into one’s own certainties and convictions.

In short, simplifying by synthesis, the filter bubble is us. We see it every time there are online discussions on current issues, with the opposing sides facing each other with partial and biased information, as also clearly emerges from our analyzes conducted on the occasion of the elections of 25 September last.