eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years-the rise of personalization. In this groundbreaking investigation of the new hidden Web, Pariser uncovers how this growing trend threatens to control how we consume and share information as a society-and reveals what we can do about it.
Though the phenomenon has gone largely undetected until now, personalized filters are sweeping the Web, creating individual universes of information for each of us. Facebook-the primary news source for an increasing number of Americans-prioritizes the links it believes will appeal to you so that if you are a liberal, you can expect to see only progressive links. Even an old-media bastion like The Washington Post devotes the top of its home page to a news feed with the links your Facebook friends are sharing. Behind the scenes a burgeoning industry of data companies is tracking your personal information to sell to advertisers, from your political leanings to the color you painted your living room to the hiking boots you just browsed on Zappos.
In a personalized world, we will increasingly be typed and fed only news that is pleasant, familiar, and confirms our beliefs-and because these filters are invisible, we won't know what is being hidden from us. Our past interests will determine what we are exposed to in the future, leaving less room for the unexpected encounters that spark creativity, innovation, and the democratic exchange of ideas.
While we all worry that the Internet is eroding privacy or shrinking our attention spans, Pariser uncovers a more pernicious and far- reaching trend on the Internet and shows how we can- and must-change course. With vivid detail and remarkable scope, The Filter Bubble reveals how personalization undermines the Internet's original purpose as an open platform for the spread of ideas and could leave us all in an isolated, echoing world.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781101515129 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 05/12/2011 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 621,736 |
| File size: | 633 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
What People are Saying About This
"For more than a decade, reflective souls have worried about the consequences of perfect personalization. Eli Pariser’s is the most powerful and troubling critique yet."--(Lawrence Lessig, author of Remix, Free Culture and Code)
"Eli Pariser is worried. He cares deeply about our common social sphere and sees it in jeopardy. His thorough investigation of Internet trends got me worried, too. He even taught me things about Facebook. It's a must-read."--(David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect)
"Eli Pariser isn’t just the smartest person I know thinking about the relationship of digital technology to participation in the democratic process—he is also the most experienced. The Filter Bubble reveals how the world we encounter is shaped by programs whose very purpose is to narrow what we see and increase the predictability of our responses. Anyone who cares about the future of human agency in a digital landscape should read this book."--(Douglas Rushkoff, author of Life Inc. and Program or Be Programmed)
"‘Personalization’ sounds pretty benign, but Eli Pariser skillfully builds a case that its excess on the Internet will unleash an information calamity—unless we heed his warnings. Top notch journalism and analysis."--(Steven Levy, author of In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives)
"Internet firms increasingly show us less of the wide world, locating us in the neighborhood of the familiar. The risk, as Eli Pariser shows, is that each of us may unwittingly come to inhabit a ghetto of one."--(Clay Shirky, author Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus)
"The Internet software that we use is getting smarter, and more tailored to our needs, all the time. The risk, Eli Pariser reveals, is that we increasingly won't see other perspectives. In The Filter Bubble, he shows us how the trend could reinforce partisan and narrow mindsets, and points the way to a greater online diversity of perspective."--(Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist)
"A powerful indictment of the current system." —-The Wall Street Journal
In The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser reveals the news slogan of the personalized internet: Only the news that fits you we print."--(George Lakoff, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant! and The Political Mind)
"You spend half your life in Internet space, but trust me—you don't understand how it works. Eli Pariser’s book is a masterpiece of both investigation and interpretation; he exposes the way we’re sent down particular information tunnels, and he explains how we might once again find ourselves in a broad public square of ideas. This couldn’t be a more interesting book; it casts an illuminating light on so many of our daily encounters."--(Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth and The End of Nature, and founder 350.org)