November 10, 2011 at 13:13Bubble filters (filter bubble), as well as 10 steps to escape from the captivity of their interests
Mark Zuckerberg was once asked about the importance of a Facebook feed, why is it key and always appears on the homepage? To which the founder of Facebook replied: "A squirrel dying on your tree may be much more relevant to you at the moment than people dying in Africa ."
The following describes the situation in which we are all on the Internet, based on the idea of relevance, and also answers the question why we are all captive of our interests, the so-called “Filter Bubble”. I will also give 10 tips that I use in order to go beyond the filter bubble - i.e. break out of the captivity of their interests.
For clarification, let's take a typical example - your Facebook page (VKontakte, underline what you need). In the news feed you have friends who are obsessed with cooking and recipes, who post on their page new exquisite recipes from the best chefs in Moscow.
In addition to the culinary experts, you have friends who are interested in politics and financial reports, who post on their pages the latest news on the state of the dual-currency basket and on the appearance of Dmitry Medvedev's Facebook page.
All these news (statuses and updates from your friends on the page) are displayed in your news feed. As usual, you are watching friends news. At the same time, you are more interested in financial and political news, and you often follow the links in these news. And what is strange - after a while in your news feed you will not see any more messages from your culinary friends ! At all. Even if they write about politics and financial events!
Facebook remembers what you click on in the news feed , and next time it gives you only the news that this social network considers interesting to you, without even consulting with you !
But where else is such invisible filtering of information on the Internet practiced? Google does the same!
Ask your five friends to type any word in Google (Yandex, you need to emphasize): for example, Moscow, and compare the results. Even with the naked eye it will be seen that the search results are different. And this result will be even if the search is carried out simultaneously! Do not believe? Check it out!
Even if you log out of your Google account, you will not leave the filter bubble - there will still be 57 more types of personalization (individualization) - parameters that the search engine will process: computer type, browser type, your location, browsing history, etc., and will give you information based on these parameters.
Think for a second: standard Google no longer exists! And this is almost imperceptible to each of us, because we don’t see other people's search results!
And it's not just about Google and Facebook. Many companies around the world use personalization: news giants Yahoo News, Google News, Huffington Post, Washington Post, New York Times - all of them use personalization. Everything on the Internet is developing in the direction of personalization, and ultimately it will show us only what it considers to be interesting to us, and not what we need !
These words are confirmed by the former head of Google Eric Schmidt: " It will be very difficult for people to see or acquire something that somehow was not matched to them ."
If we take all these services, their personalization algorithms and the issuance of personalized information and the filters themselves, we get the following picture, the so-called filter bubble or filter bubble, where you are in the center.
This bubble of filters is your universe in which you live on the Internet. And what will be displayed in this filter bubble will depend on who you are and what you do, i.e. Information from the bubble filters will always be based on your professional, personal interests. But the problem is that it is not you who decides what information to receive on the Internet . And even more importantly, you won’t even see information about what remains behind the bubble of filters .
It violates our “normal informational diet”, displaying us information only about what entertains us. Research Netflix has shown that people much more likely to opt for mass consumption product information (talk shows, reality shows, mediocre comedy, gossip, intrigues, scandals, investigations, etc.), rather than information about science, politics, culture, education , medicine ...
What is the principle of operation of such filters? Filters keep track of where you click first (it’s unlikely to be the “Complete Works of Heinrich Heine, ” but rather a nude photo of Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley ), remember this choice and will show you “the same” information in the future.
And what to do? How to escape from the filter bubble?
But for starters, the sad news is that there is no “magic pill”. Our “opponents” (Facebook, Google, VKontakte, Yandex, Yahoo News, Google News, Huffington Post, Washington Post, New York Times, etc.) use filters against which antidotes have not yet appeared.
But so far not everything is lost. Below are the recommendations that I myself use.
If you want to see filters outside your bubble, you need to periodically clear cookies in your browser. Below are the menu items for browsers where to clear cookies. An example for Internet Explorer in the screenshot below.
If we use Gmail, Yandex.Mail, Yandex.Maps, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Yandex.Webmaster, Yandex.Metrica, Google Webmasters, AdWords, AdSense or any other service from search engines, we use a single personalized profile in that number and for search. The sure sign of the profile is your login at the top of the browser.
The principle of Google / Yandex search is based on our web search history - search engines remember the list of sites we visited using Google / Yandex search. Such a search history can even last several years.
Remembering the history of our search dooms each of us to repeat the same story again and again and get the results of a new search, based on what you entered earlier - this is the meaning of the filter bubble.
To delete search data for Google:
I couldn’t find the information how to delete the web search history for Yandex (apparently, this option is not provided for selfish purposes), but I learned how to stop saving this history, which is also important:
You can, of course, create a new Yandex profile and immediately follow the steps to stop saving the search.
This company has made more than any other company in the world in order to make once private data publicly available! Moreover, previously information about clicking on the Like button was private, now this information is publicly available and Facebook has forbidden to change this setting!
I didn’t find any information about VKontakte, but I’m pretty sure that they also give out information about our clicks on “Like”.
Moreover, since Facebook users don’t even know about it, information about their likes is collected by commercial organizations (for example, Rapleaf ), it is filtered and sold in a convenient formcompanies for a lot of money! Moreover, these reports contain detailed information about each of us: our name, gender, age, country, city, interests and all-all-all the likes we have ever clicked on the Internet!
The main rule: if you do not want to make something public, never click “Like” Facebook (“Like” VKontakte) on this!
But that's not all! When you are logged in to Facebook (VKontakte, underline what is necessary), social. the network can transfer information to other sites! To disable the transfer of information about you to third-party sites, follow these steps:
5. (optional) Go back, select the Edit Settings button to the right of the Public Search section . 6. Uncheck Enable public search . This will prevent the issuance of information about you in search engines. To set up additional privacy protection, play around with Facebook’s privacy settings in Privacy Settings . I set the default settings for myself - for friends, " Friends " in the Control Your Default Privacy section .
Your date of birth and full name help companies like Raplief absolutely accurately identify you. For example, you have a list of likes from different Petrov Ivanovs (an example with different Vadim Zharkikh is not suitable here) - there are hundreds or thousands of people with such full names, it is difficult to determine who is who. But your date of birth comes to the rescue, which in 99.99% of cases uniquely identifies you.
Therefore, hide your date of birth on social networks. Well, or at least hide the year of birth (as a rule, this is done in your profile in social networks).
Use nicknames instead of real names wherever you can (Facebook, VKontakte, MoyMir, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, etc.). In this way, we very much spoil the "business", which is built on our efforts and we do not get a penny for it!
Incognito mode eliminates the use of cookies and you will see almost depersonalized information (search results).
Why almost? Some companies (for example, Google) stores data about you not only on your computer in the form of cookies, but also on their servers.
Each browser now allows you to use incognito mode - so use it!
Sites such as Torproject.org and Anonymizer.com allow you to pass all your traffic from all browsers through their servers, effectively deleting even the data that “shine” when you use incognito mode.
So, if you use the sites Google, Yandex, Facebook, VKontakte, turned off cookies and use incognito mode. Does this mean that these sites do not know who you are? The answer is NO!
As it turned out, each request to download a web page shows these sites a lot of information about our computer and software - and many of these configurations are unique.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) points to such unique data about you here . And they give recommendations on how to make your settings much harder to track - read here .
For example, write to Facebook so that they either turn off the public availability of information about all your likes, or let you choose if you would like to be shared with third parties!
Here are the contacts where you can send your wishes about the operation of Google and Facebook filters:
Write your wishes and recommendations to the governments of the USA and Russia, so that they forbid these companies to distribute personal information about you to everyone with impunity.
US contacts:
Contacts in the Russian Federation:
And what is the result? The freedom to find information on the Internet. That will be enough for me.
I was inspired to write the article by the video from the TED Talks conference, in which Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, talks about the problem of the filter bubble in which each of us is in 9 minutes.
Sources: Ted Talks video , thefilterbubble.com , Vadim Zharkikh's blog
The following describes the situation in which we are all on the Internet, based on the idea of relevance, and also answers the question why we are all captive of our interests, the so-called “Filter Bubble”. I will also give 10 tips that I use in order to go beyond the filter bubble - i.e. break out of the captivity of their interests.
What is a bubble filter?
For clarification, let's take a typical example - your Facebook page (VKontakte, underline what you need). In the news feed you have friends who are obsessed with cooking and recipes, who post on their page new exquisite recipes from the best chefs in Moscow.
In addition to the culinary experts, you have friends who are interested in politics and financial reports, who post on their pages the latest news on the state of the dual-currency basket and on the appearance of Dmitry Medvedev's Facebook page.
All these news (statuses and updates from your friends on the page) are displayed in your news feed. As usual, you are watching friends news. At the same time, you are more interested in financial and political news, and you often follow the links in these news. And what is strange - after a while in your news feed you will not see any more messages from your culinary friends ! At all. Even if they write about politics and financial events!
Facebook remembers what you click on in the news feed , and next time it gives you only the news that this social network considers interesting to you, without even consulting with you !
But where else is such invisible filtering of information on the Internet practiced? Google does the same!
Ask your five friends to type any word in Google (Yandex, you need to emphasize): for example, Moscow, and compare the results. Even with the naked eye it will be seen that the search results are different. And this result will be even if the search is carried out simultaneously! Do not believe? Check it out!
Even if you log out of your Google account, you will not leave the filter bubble - there will still be 57 more types of personalization (individualization) - parameters that the search engine will process: computer type, browser type, your location, browsing history, etc., and will give you information based on these parameters.
Think for a second: standard Google no longer exists! And this is almost imperceptible to each of us, because we don’t see other people's search results!
And it's not just about Google and Facebook. Many companies around the world use personalization: news giants Yahoo News, Google News, Huffington Post, Washington Post, New York Times - all of them use personalization. Everything on the Internet is developing in the direction of personalization, and ultimately it will show us only what it considers to be interesting to us, and not what we need !
These words are confirmed by the former head of Google Eric Schmidt: " It will be very difficult for people to see or acquire something that somehow was not matched to them ."
If we take all these services, their personalization algorithms and the issuance of personalized information and the filters themselves, we get the following picture, the so-called filter bubble or filter bubble, where you are in the center.
This bubble of filters is your universe in which you live on the Internet. And what will be displayed in this filter bubble will depend on who you are and what you do, i.e. Information from the bubble filters will always be based on your professional, personal interests. But the problem is that it is not you who decides what information to receive on the Internet . And even more importantly, you won’t even see information about what remains behind the bubble of filters .
What is wrong with the filter bubble?
It violates our “normal informational diet”, displaying us information only about what entertains us. Research Netflix has shown that people much more likely to opt for mass consumption product information (talk shows, reality shows, mediocre comedy, gossip, intrigues, scandals, investigations, etc.), rather than information about science, politics, culture, education , medicine ...
What is the principle of operation of such filters? Filters keep track of where you click first (it’s unlikely to be the “Complete Works of Heinrich Heine, ” but rather a nude photo of Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley ), remember this choice and will show you “the same” information in the future.
And what to do? How to escape from the filter bubble?
But for starters, the sad news is that there is no “magic pill”. Our “opponents” (Facebook, Google, VKontakte, Yandex, Yahoo News, Google News, Huffington Post, Washington Post, New York Times, etc.) use filters against which antidotes have not yet appeared.
But so far not everything is lost. Below are the recommendations that I myself use.
10 Simple Steps To Avoid Personalizing Internet Information
1. Delete all cookies
If you want to see filters outside your bubble, you need to periodically clear cookies in your browser. Below are the menu items for browsers where to clear cookies. An example for Internet Explorer in the screenshot below.
- For Google Chrome: ( Preferences -> Under the Hood -> Content Settings )
- For FireFox: ( Preferences -> Privacy -> Use custom settings for history )
- For Safari: ( Preferences -> Security )
- For Internet Explorer: ( Internet options -> Privacy )
2. Delete the history of your web search
If we use Gmail, Yandex.Mail, Yandex.Maps, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Yandex.Webmaster, Yandex.Metrica, Google Webmasters, AdWords, AdSense or any other service from search engines, we use a single personalized profile in that number and for search. The sure sign of the profile is your login at the top of the browser.
The principle of Google / Yandex search is based on our web search history - search engines remember the list of sites we visited using Google / Yandex search. Such a search history can even last several years.
Remembering the history of our search dooms each of us to repeat the same story again and again and get the results of a new search, based on what you entered earlier - this is the meaning of the filter bubble.
To delete search data for Google:
- a) Go to the Google homepage
- b) Click on your name in the upper right corner and go to " Naystroyki account " ( the Account settings )
- c) At the bottom of the page, click " Looking for old account settings and a list of Google products? Previous version of Google Accounts "
- d) Click "Edit" (Edit) next to the title " My Products " ( the My Products )
- e) Click " Permanently Delete Web History " ( the Remove the Web History Permanently )
I couldn’t find the information how to delete the web search history for Yandex (apparently, this option is not provided for selfish purposes), but I learned how to stop saving this history, which is also important:
- a) Go to the Yandex home page
- b) Search for any words, such as what the word horsmaning means
- c) In the right corner of the browser under the profile name, click on " Settings " (immediately below the " My Finds " item )
- d) At the bottom of the " Search History " section , select " Stop recording "
- e) Click the " Save and go back to search " button
You can, of course, create a new Yandex profile and immediately follow the steps to stop saving the search.
3. Hide your personal data on Facebook
This company has made more than any other company in the world in order to make once private data publicly available! Moreover, previously information about clicking on the Like button was private, now this information is publicly available and Facebook has forbidden to change this setting!
I didn’t find any information about VKontakte, but I’m pretty sure that they also give out information about our clicks on “Like”.
Moreover, since Facebook users don’t even know about it, information about their likes is collected by commercial organizations (for example, Rapleaf ), it is filtered and sold in a convenient formcompanies for a lot of money! Moreover, these reports contain detailed information about each of us: our name, gender, age, country, city, interests and all-all-all the likes we have ever clicked on the Internet!
The main rule: if you do not want to make something public, never click “Like” Facebook (“Like” VKontakte) on this!
But that's not all! When you are logged in to Facebook (VKontakte, underline what is necessary), social. the network can transfer information to other sites! To disable the transfer of information about you to third-party sites, follow these steps:
- 1. Log in to Facebook. In the upper right corner, click Account , then on Privacy Settings.
- 2. To the right of the Apps and websites section, select Edit your settings.
- 3. Then, to the right of the Instant personalization section, click Edit settings . You can see a drop-down video about how cool it is to transfer information about you to third-party sites! Just click Close .
- 4. At the bottom of the site, uncheck Enable instant personalization on partner websites . This will prevent other sites from using information about you.
5. (optional) Go back, select the Edit Settings button to the right of the Public Search section . 6. Uncheck Enable public search . This will prevent the issuance of information about you in search engines. To set up additional privacy protection, play around with Facebook’s privacy settings in Privacy Settings . I set the default settings for myself - for friends, " Friends " in the Control Your Default Privacy section .
4. Hide your date of birth and use nicknames
Your date of birth and full name help companies like Raplief absolutely accurately identify you. For example, you have a list of likes from different Petrov Ivanovs (an example with different Vadim Zharkikh is not suitable here) - there are hundreds or thousands of people with such full names, it is difficult to determine who is who. But your date of birth comes to the rescue, which in 99.99% of cases uniquely identifies you.
Therefore, hide your date of birth on social networks. Well, or at least hide the year of birth (as a rule, this is done in your profile in social networks).
Use nicknames instead of real names wherever you can (Facebook, VKontakte, MoyMir, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, etc.). In this way, we very much spoil the "business", which is built on our efforts and we do not get a penny for it!
5. Turn off targeted ads
- For Google Chrome, install the ' Keep My Opt-Outs ' extension
- For IE9, enable the ' Tracking Protection ' option
- For Firefox, turn off the ' Do Not Track ' option
- Safari promised 'Tracking Protection' option this summer
6. Use incognito mode in browser
Incognito mode eliminates the use of cookies and you will see almost depersonalized information (search results).
Why almost? Some companies (for example, Google) stores data about you not only on your computer in the form of cookies, but also on their servers.
Each browser now allows you to use incognito mode - so use it!
7. Or even better - use anonymous surfing on the Internet
Sites such as Torproject.org and Anonymizer.com allow you to pass all your traffic from all browsers through their servers, effectively deleting even the data that “shine” when you use incognito mode.
8. Depersonalize your browser
So, if you use the sites Google, Yandex, Facebook, VKontakte, turned off cookies and use incognito mode. Does this mean that these sites do not know who you are? The answer is NO!
As it turned out, each request to download a web page shows these sites a lot of information about our computer and software - and many of these configurations are unique.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) points to such unique data about you here . And they give recommendations on how to make your settings much harder to track - read here .
9. Write directly to Google and Facebook, so that they give you complete control over your personal information.
For example, write to Facebook so that they either turn off the public availability of information about all your likes, or let you choose if you would like to be shared with third parties!
Here are the contacts where you can send your wishes about the operation of Google and Facebook filters:
10. Write to the governments of countries whose laws are governed by Google, Facebook, Yandex, VKontakte, etc.
Write your wishes and recommendations to the governments of the USA and Russia, so that they forbid these companies to distribute personal information about you to everyone with impunity.
US contacts:
- White House: writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
- Senate: www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Contacts in the Russian Federation:
- Send a letter to the President: letters.kremlin.ru
And what is the result? The freedom to find information on the Internet. That will be enough for me.
I was inspired to write the article by the video from the TED Talks conference, in which Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, talks about the problem of the filter bubble in which each of us is in 9 minutes.
Sources: Ted Talks video , thefilterbubble.com , Vadim Zharkikh's blog
