The Internet Is Not Free: We're In The Filter Bubble

This is about technology-more specifically about the Internet. And how it's now it's turning into an undemocratic place, without you even realising. This book review was originally published in Significance, the statistics outreach magazine of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and the American Statistical Association (ASA). This version contains some minor changes.

Earlier this year, Google updated its privacy policy. The new policy allows the search giant to combine data it has gathered about its users across its different products into one big file. What this means is that Google can now mine into more data about our online personas so it can hash out more personalised search results (and more targeted advertisements). At first sight, it does appear that the more personalised our search results, the better right? For instance, by tracking our locations, Google can give us weather forecasts for our parts of the world. It can also curate a list of videos that may potentially interest us by monitoring what we watch on YouTube. But as Internet activist, Eli Pariser, details in The Filter Bubble, a personalised Internet casts a looming shadow as well.

In The Filter Bubble, Pariser discusses a number of reasons why personalisation of the web is not necessarily a good thing. And they all stem from one central theme which he takes considerable time to convene: personalisation creates a filter bubble around us that pampers us and only shows us what we want to see, effectively un-democratising the Internet for each one of us. For example, if you are a conservative, you will get results tailored to your conservative views. If you are a climate change denier, you will not be linked to articles which explain the consequences of global warming.

As he dives into the subject more prominently, Pariser not only looks at how Google and Facebook (which personalises its news feed) are personalising our Internet but also gives us a crash-course in new-age marketing. He opens a window into the world of virtual Madison Avenue, if you will. In this world, carefully hidden from us, statisticians, data analysts, programmers, psychologists and marketers are conspiring to collect and interpret as much data about us to find out how they can more effectively push their products on us.

The Filter Bubble rings the alarm bell loud and clear to warn us about the deceiving appearance of an Internet that is quietly being corrupted by a handful of companies. We are being fed news that Google and Facebook think are more suited to us and are being tracked and monitored-or spied upon-so that we spend more money buying products some lurking companies think we want. We are, in other words, being dictated-and we are not even aware of it. In this excellent book, Pariser forces us to open our eyes.