The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I first heard Pariser speak when this book was initially published - maybe on NPR or a TED Talk. His thesis was intriguing - the tools we use to access the Internet (like Google) are filtering our view of news and information in an effort to customize for us. For example, as you like things on Facebook, the algorithms find more things similar to that to show you - so if you like a few liberal-leaning articles, or news sources that are liberal-leaning, more will begin to populate your feed.
I filed this idea away, occasionally thought about it, and put the book on my booklist. Finally got around to reading the whole book and I learned a lot more. The first thing that I learned was that the reason that Google and Facebook do this is all about revenue. Maybe this is obvious but I enjoyed the analysis of how all these corporations make money and use our information. Even though the book is now a few years old, it was still valuable to read.
The rest of the book had similarly interesting content around things like a long-term perspective on news sources, and how democracy is impacted by this "filter." While a few of the sections on historical context went a bit long for my taste, it didn't ruin the book for me. Overall I am glad to have read it, and it keeps me thinking as I use the Internet for information how to try to get to the information that is outside my "bubble."
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