Ever wonder why some people are soooo blind?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

Well, this talk on ted.com could be a good place to start...

What's the Internet (and its gatekeepers) keeping from YOU?

sP

[Quantess]

1. I don't appreciate being second-guessed.

I feel very patronized to. I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets irritated at being second guessed by a non-human device.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. but it seems to be the norm rather than the exception

at all layers of media consumption...just a new wrinkle in how information is provided. But it does make you think about how polarized the country has become in the last 10 years or so (well, seemingly more than in the past but that could be my age talking) and what role this 'filtering' is taking in that polarization.

sP

[Quantess]

3. Why do they all ASSUME that everyone wants this?

For me, they guess wrong, now that I live in Europe. Google thinks I don't speak english anymore.

It's like the whatchamacallit auto-type for texting on mobile phones. If it were a human I would yell at it and say "look, I don't need your help wiith spelling!" Same idea.

Second-guessing is annoying. I like to be the one in control, not the device.

[treestar]

4. One does not have to use those, no?

We can easily go to news sites with general headlines. And it does make it easier to follow stories that we'd otherwise never have heard of. The choice to read only your liberal friends posts is his own. Though on FB it is understandable. But one can easily find the opposition's views if one chooses.

But I do talk to conservatives who, I can tell, expose themselves only to the right wing viewpoint, and it does make them pig headed (more than usual).

[Quantess]

5. Do you know of any search engines that do not use an algorythm of this sort?

If so, I will switch.
If not, somebody needs to start one!

[treestar]

6. Search engines?

Someone who gets their news by search engine is pretty much knowing they will get limits - and they'd have to search more than once - If I google one issue, I'll get both sides of it.

I thought the complaint was limiting one's news intake to what one wants to hear.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

8. this is not just about search engines, though they are the first real adopters of this

but hell, go to cnn as an example. their news differs wildly from location to location and while that may be appropriate, it can be extended to do the same things google and yahoo are doing. wasn't it Time Magazine that had the radically different cover for the US while the rest of the world got info on the uprising in Egypt? if Time can do it with a print edition, just imagine how much more powerfully it can be done with digital content...by anyone.

sP

[Quantess]

10. Didn't you watch the video? You should, it's great.

No, I don't usually look for news from a search engine, either.
I use search engines to look up all kinds of various subjects.

Google thinks I must not speak english very well now that I'm in Sweden. It likes to default to google.se no matter how often I try to set it to google.com, and even when I use google.com, it offers to translate it to swedish for me, LOL.

I used to use yahoo news. Yahoo is notorious for showing you what it thinks you want to see. It's really noticeable.

[treestar]

11. I did but in the middle may have been doing something else

I didn't realize Yahoo did that - I see the rotating stories but didn't think they were tailoring it for me at all.

[Quantess]

14. Yeah, they showed screen shots of 2 different people's google search for "egypt"

2 completely different results.

[Ohio Joe]

13. Have you adjusted your language settings?

From the main google page, click on the "gear" looking thing in the upper right hand corner and select "Language Tools", from there you can set your defaults.

[Quantess]

15. I just did, thanks!

I had started to fix it a long time ago but for some reason never followed through, or never clicked "save", or something.

[Ohio Joe]

16. I believe you have to be logged in for it to really keep it.

Which means having a google account and making sure you are logged in every time you open your browser. Otherwise I am pretty sure it only keeps the setting for as long as your browser is open and you have to do it again next time... freakin google.

[Taitertots]

18. It doesn't need to be forced to be counter productive and/or destructive n/t

[annabanana]

7. It is the newest "divide and conquer" machine.

When our open carriages.. where we were next to our neighbors on the road and could talk back and forth.. have become closed, sealed cars.. where our daily commute (surely side by side with the same folks, day in and day out) is a solitary trip..


When our neighborhoods.. always occupied by the "lady of the house" and info was passed over fences, or from fire escapes... have becomes closed, sealed habitats individual pods where our next door neighbor is that stranger in the line at the mall. .


The concept of community is wheezing it's last painful breaths. .

[Demonaut]

9. I've suspected this for awhile, algorithmic overlords

noticed when searching for flight prices with friends, their prices would differ from even though we looked at the same flight and seating, this was two years ago and I'm not surprised that its grown, I think BBC News.com has been doing this for some time too

[Rex]

12. And everyone thought Big Brother was the dam gummit!

Not so, well kinda...it is Google and the NSA that hides behind Google.

[ohheckyeah]

17. Amazon at leasts

gives you a little control over your recommendations.