The unfreedom of filter bubbles – let's pop the bloody things

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We could see it coming. Sort of.

I wrote a post titled myChannel back in 2005, a time without smartphones, Facebook, Twitter and news aggregators like Flipboard. YouTube was 17 days off launching. Reviewing the tech landscape I concluded:

… mass personalisation has become a ‘qualifying’ rather than ‘winning’ criteria. The advantages to the user include choice (of the most apt personalisation), collation, and access in their own time and filtering. …The user, the recipient of news and information, the listener, the viewer, the inter-actor, has been empowered to set the schedule. It’s what they want, when they want it and how they want it. They have one channel … and they own it. It is myChannel.

Algorithm on Philip Sheldrake

The unfreedom of filter bubbles – let's pop the bloody things