What happens if the filter bubble bursts?

anyone Who owns a Gmail mailbox, and as a registered user of Youtube open, on the home page of the video portal pretty much Compliant: movie trailers, sports sequences, Clips, the one has already looked or themes that interest you. Entertainment à la carte. Google displays due to individual searches of the recommendations that most closely match the preferences of its users. Although individual Videos from watch history or search queries from the search, you can delete history, but the Mechanics of YouTube's Algorithms, content is cropped to the user, does not shut down – it is the Central design principle of data-driven Advertising machine. You do not need to make once the effort of a Clip to choose the next Video will play automatically. The user can lean back comfortably.

you can Also use social networks such as Twitter or Facebook personalize content. Who created on Facebook a fictitious Dummy Account – male, 53 years old, living in Zurich and the sites of SRF, Greenpeace, and the local biker club likt, sees in his Newsfeed, unsurprisingly, content from the field of environmental protection. It is interesting to note that the Newsfeed algorithm associating content with each other – for example, a contribution of the daily topics about Greenpeace is displayed. The user sees a continually content that interest him, he has already somehow have in view, and is confirmed in his Thinking permanently.

The Internet activist Eli Pariser coined the term filter bubble. This is the behavioristic Trick behind the Like-machinery to manipulate users and conditioned by reward mechanisms so that they could stay for as long as possible in the rod. After all, The more time the users spend on Facebook, the more money the group earns by Ads. The concern is that the filter bubble can lead to a polarization and fragmentation of the political landscape.

Certainly, filter bubbles are not a new phenomenon. Who turns the ultra-conservative US channel Fox News and the hysterical effusions of the moderator on the "caravan crisis" on the us-Mexican border exposes, you must make the trump tone modernist no illusions. That viewers of MSNBC, more moderate positions to the U.S. migration policy is also clear. In this respect, transparency about the political orientation. In the case of social networks, it's different – the Algorithms, the structure information, and select, are a Black Box. Of the Facebook users do not know whether he will now be calculated as a Republican or democratic voters, and his data has been sold to a political campaign. The procedures are completely non-transparent.

Facebook wants to take action against false information and specialists, the network of fake user accounts and Fake News under the cartridges.

Jürgen Habermas wrote in his book "technology and science as "ideology"" of 1968: "today's ruling replacement program applies only to the Functioning of a system. To turn it off, practical issues, and the discussion on the adoption of Standards that would be alone in the democratic process accessible. The solution of technical tasks is not dependent on public discussion." Also Facebook turns questions by compensating problems such as hate speech, hate on the net, computer scientists, and thus the access to the Public drains. And against the opposition immunized.

The question is whether a critical Public, which implies the rules of a changeable rule of a discursive game that can work when in the engine room of private Tech companies an algorithmic Agenda-Setting is programmed. How do you criticize a System in continuous feedback loops always confirmed his own Thinking?

In the echo chambers of the other side not hearing

A critical Public is the ability to take criticism of My perspective, the willingness of his own point of view critically and with other arguments and positions. In the sound-proof echo chambers, the rooms, the social engineers find the arguments of the other side but no hearing. You can otherwise ignore thinking, and mute. Facebook or Youtube are not debating clubs, but advertising platforms, in which the Public obtained as a kind of monitoring of capitalist by-product. Yet that is exactly the Problem: The "media" Ecosystems affects, the rational debates are detrimental to: excitement, emotion, sometimes even of hatred, to reward. A conspiracy video which is clicked millions of times, is also an economic success. The corporations earn so that the axe is applied to the democratic roots. A seemingly irreconcilable conflict. And such a System corrupts, ultimately, the users of which are controlled by such metrics.

The sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has placed in the New York Times, the Thesis that Youtube is "one of the most powerful radicalisation tools of the 21st century. This century." The researcher had observed during the presidential election campaign in 2016 in the United States, that the Portal took place after the Retrieval of Clips of Trump rallies Videos about white racists and Holocaust-deniers suggested and automatically. Programmed Extremism. Also in the case of non-political content, the sociologist observed a radicalization effect. Clips about vegetarians led to Clips about Vegans. The Videos about Jogging to ultra marathons.

in the Midst of a Revolution, the Timeline such as Disneyland

You will feel like you are surfing from one Extreme to the next. Only: How to get out of this spiral? There were in the United States to reflect on whether Tech platforms like Facebook or Google, similar to how cable network operators statutory distribution rules (Must-Carry Rules) imposes, obligate you to specific content feed and to diversify your "program". Theoretically, the legislature could force Facebook to modify its Algorithms so that the contents are balanced, and thus, the sealant of the filter bubble break-up. Practically, this would, however, be difficult to implement: Facebook would then have to accept the view loss and would probably complain about it.

But: Would it change the debate culture, if the convinced Alt-Right-followers in addition to Breitbart News, alibi gets moderately faded in a couple of CNN posts in his Newsfeed? Or this would be the anger at the alleged Political Correctness of new food? In other words: Is the political communication may be so sensitive that a Bursting of the filter bubble more dangers than their maintenance?

Facebook is not only fighting with allegations of filter bubbles, but has to justify itself again and again for the handling of user data.

The US legal scholar Frank Pasquale bubbles in an analysis for the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation, called "The automated public space": "The big Problem for the supporters of the Filter-reforms is that they can not demonstrate adequately whether a confrontation of the followers of a page will lead with the facts, the priorities of the ideology and the values of the other side's understanding or rejection, rethinking, or Unruliness." Even in a Situation of "asymmetric convince-ability" would consolidate, ultimately, only the Power of the social group, or political party, "which is the most steadfast to their positions," writes Pasquale.

more Serious than the polarization of the derealisierung effects, associated with filter bubbles appear. Sociologist Tufekci was quoted once that your Newsfeed is feeling in the midst of a Revolution, such as "Disneyland". During the riots in Ferguson in August 2014 she saw on Facebook instead of messages just invitations to the Ice-Bucket Challenge, in which users poured in front of the cameras buckets of ice over their heads. Who is informed only on Facebook, had taken from the riots may not have a note. The shutdown of the Public begins with the suppression of reality. (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Created: 12.12.2018, 16:47 PM