Hugh Miller
You may not know it by the name but it probably affects you multiple times each day. Filter bubbles are algorithms that track a visitors choices on a website and selectively feed them tailored options when they return. There are a thousand variations of this on the on the web. When you shop at Amazon and search for things it affects the results you’ll see 
next time. Every time you watch a YouTube video a hodgepodge of results influenced by that viewing will appear as recommended videos. There are even “cookie relationships” between different websites where what you look at on one could influence what you see THE FIRST TIME you visit a different website. Nobody sees the same Facebook, Reddit or YouTube. This is enough to give many people a creepy “shadowed” feeling while others may shrug and say it’s all anonymous really, so why get into a sweat? The websites would certainly claim that it was only about providing better service by fine tuning your experience to better fit your interests. Of course, better service is always really about better revenue. Plus who are they to say that my experience is better as opposed to overly managed? It probably comes down to two not very nice things:
1. Their anxious sense that they need to control the people visiting the site. I think it unnerves investors and managers to think that visitors are wandering chaotically around out of control, doing what they want in an unmoderated way. I think they feel (not think) that if they are NOT manipulating and attempting to force people through some sort of filters they’ve devised that they’d be failing to do their job.
2. A related issue but not EXACTLY the same: The sense that the product must be refined and distilled for extra strength and intensity so it becomes a more powerful experience. In effect, it’s like adding more sugar, salt and fat to fast food. Is it good for business? Yes. Is it good for the customer? Nope.
One important thing to know is that since Dec. 4, 2009, Google results have been personalized for everyone. Google itself has become the meta filter bubble by telling you more of what it has decided you want to know about and less of what it thinks you don’t want to know about. There is a conflict of interest here that isn’t attracting much notice. Google (motto: “don’t be evil”) has not been high profile about this dramatic change at all and if you want to get unfiltered results you have to do some tricky behind the scenes settings changes. Google clearly profits from the personalization of search results. Google’s advertising profits are enhanced by tailoring them more closely to the personal biases of users but its vaunted informational purity is downgraded. Google should provide a clear: Personal / Objective choice. And think of this, years from now where will your shaped results have drifted? Given enough personalization would a conspiracy theorist for example never encounter a competing version of reality?
What this whole process reminds me of (especially in this age extreme polarization) is the way people treat the boss, telling him only what he wants to hear and isolating him further and further within a mono-cultural inaccurate echo chamber. What could go wrong, eh? You can imagine all of us gradually glassing over with ever more satisfying drivel.
Eli Pariser is the one who coined the phrase “filter bubble” here he is describing his concerns.
Boy is insane.
Thinking process seems to be “Must get up! Can’t get up. WhAAA. Good. Big Monkey holding me up. Must walk! Can’t walk! WhAAAA.What’s that on floor? Yummmm…Styrofoam.To hell with stupid toys, where are the heavy sharp things?”
Incredible new skills crawling squirming changing from sitting to lying down. He’s pretty much break dancing all day. Pappa is frazzled, as baby charges randomly around Momma’s house suddenly looks like The Zone of Death.
Sometimes he gets tired and pauses to look up as if to say “What in the world is happening to me?”
He waves. He says Hi. Mostly when we’re just hanging around.
Love to all.
Hugh
Isaac is a big healthy boy at 22 in. long and nearly 20 lb.
He’s more truly here all the time – and that’s sort of the scary thing. We have to watch what we say and do more. The cat starts to destroy the couch and I yell with this big voice he hardly ever hears and I look down to see this tender little face big eyed, looking at me like I’m a little scary (picture Cindy Lou Who asking “Why are you taking our Christmas tree Santa Claus, Why?”). Yikes.
Love to all,
Hugh
A professional social network sounds like a good business tool and a useful thing but the best-known entry in this market, LinkedIn, has a number of flawed and selfish premises that have led to it Winning, but not Succeeding. I mean that while they are clearly dominant, they are a failure as a social network.
1. LinkedIn-flation: Linked in tells you to be discriminating in adding people to your network because the resulting networks are supposed to be a tree of solid integrity and merit. At the same time, they are indiscriminate in throwing contacts at you, constantly encouraging you to expand your network. When a new person asks to join your network (typically with an invitation as impersonal as a bid in a game of Bridge) it doesn’t let you contact the person before accepting them. You literally cannot even say “where do I know you from?” until you have said, “this person is in my network”. Either that or you have to reject them outright. The upper limit of contacts you are allowed to have is 30,000.
2. Taste the Beige! There is no experiential reward for participating. Nobody enjoys being on LinkedIn. The payoff to Facebook is pleasurable or at least personal contact with others. The payoff of LinkedIn is that you are on LinkedIn. This is because LinkedIn is essentially fear based. You better be there if you don’t want to be overlooked when the big recruiter in the sky comes to check and see if you are a “self-starter with excellent organizational skills.” The value is purely in being findable in this database.
3. InHuman: Which leads us to the fact that everyone there is being flat and careful, creating an idealized portrait of themselves from a corporate point of view. This means that 70 percent of the content is pure methane in a cardboard cup. It is appropriate to the professional context yet dreary, flat and thin. It is the online equivalent of driving across Kansas.
4. Lousy Host: Because there is no joy or (experiential) profit in participating, and no sensible business model, LinkedIn has to jealously withhold information and limit access to the people it has aggressively gathered together for the purpose of sharing information. It’s like a host who has invited as many people as possible to a party and then tries to limit the guests from talking to each other unless they pay for the drinks at this party and next month’s party too.
5. InVasive: Finally, LinkedIn is so aggressive about recruiting people for these non-festivities that it makes the NSA look like the ACLU. Honestly, people, even if you don’t use the invite contacts feature, LinkedIn requires you to sign in to your email and accept membership and when you do they come along with you, into your email every time you have LinkedIn cookies in your browser. Yes, they check your email along with you, noting every single one and comparing addresses to people in their database. So if you have LinkedIn you will get messages like “This guy you exchanged a single email with 7 years ago has joined LinkedIn. Accept him to your network?“
6. It gets worse: Their new iPhone App actually channels ALL YOUR EMAILS COMING AND GOING, THROUGH THEIR SERVERS. This is appalling, This is insane! These are serious, even shocking violations of privacy! The implications for anyone in medical or legal fields should be a radioactive red flag! You could violate client privacy or HIPPA conditions without even knowing it. The import for anyone is deeply worrying.
But why? What could possibly justify these outrageous violations of trust? Why do they do things this way?
So that LinkedIn, the terrible party you are obligated to attend, can become more inevitable, a bigger ant pile, a greater Gasbag.
Update:
How to get the value, while fucking them over: I eventually rejoined but in a way that protected my privacy better. I created a new webmail address (yahoo, gmail, whatever) to use as my LinkedIn username. And I NEVER ever use it to communicate with anyone. Therefore even when they brazenly invade my email account there is nobody and nothing there for them gather up. I just reach out to the people I feel like reaching out to and keep a profile there for the odd case where it comes in handy.
