Filter Bubble

"A marketplace has emerged where public humiliation is a commodity and shame is the industry. How is the money made? Clicks. The more shame, the more clicks. The more clicks, the more advertising dollars." - Monica Lewinsky

I'm about 70 pages into the filter bubble when I checked my Facebook feed to find an article from the New York Times about Monica Lewinsky finally coming back onto the radar and how she is doing it.  This led me to watching a Ted Talk that she gave earlier this year.  Thus far mostly the Filter Bubble has been talking about how the age of personalization came about.  It all had to do with the effectiveness of advertising, because that's how websites make money is by selling ad space.  If the ads can become customized to every user and double or triple effective, because Facebook/Google/Acxiom knows who you are and what you like that is good for business.  The connection that Monica asserted and this principle was striking to me.  Monica not only talked about how this had come about, but the effect on society, and both were extremely saddening.  She asserted that her scandal was one of the first scandals that the internet played a huge role in, because of the pure amount of hatred that came at her just over the internet alone.  She was slut shamed and harassed on every frontier, including this new one, considering it was the late 90's.  Today there are terms to describe what happened to her, cyber-bullying and harassment are the the most well known.  Gossip and public humiliation of that nature generates millions of clicks, which is good for advertisers.  In this sense public humiliation and anything that can spark it has become a commodity, because guaranteed public humiliation like what happened to Monica Lewinsky, the nude leads from the actresses, or what happens to most celebrities is good for advertising revenue.  It has become part of a business model.  This has evolved a society that is very callous and in certain ways cruel, because nobody cares enough to stop it.  This idea of the number of clicks is now driving not only what we see and read and consume, but how we act in regard to our fellow humans.  That is too much power for something like a machine to hold.  It's a crazy amount.  It now isn't only influencing what we see and learn about, but it's influences our values one click at a time.  

Pt.2 

"There is no certainty.  There is only adventure"

Serendipity is part of the creative process as a designer I rely heavily on this act and sometimes I chase it with all my might.  Eli Pariser argues that the filter bubble eliminates serendipity and therefore eliminates creativity or significantly limits it.  I disagree with this statement.  Yes, the filter bubble, anything meant to filter anything else is going to disrupt the natural flow and exchange of idea and it could have a narrowing effect.  However, I have always been aware of the fact that this bubble is in place, because when I go to do visual research on a style or period I get the same 20-40 images on Google.  I can scroll all the way down and they are still the same, so I can only pull so much research from it, but that being said it's more helpful than getting non-relevant research.  When I get research that isn't helpful I generally go back to what I typed into the search engine and change it.  Sometimes it doesn't make a difference what I need research on is just too obscure or there just isn't enough of it on Google to be of help and those times are the times where I want to bang my head against the wall, instead of the times where it filters all my results nicely and presents me with somewhere between 15-20 usable images.  Most creative people are aware that you can't only use Google to do research and we do research (in the hope of finding something that inspires us) in many different ways.  Most of us use the services of Pintrest to get a whole new bank of images, one of my person favorites is Stumbleupon because you can get anything from a video to a helpful, detailed article on your subject, I own several textbooks detailing the different architecture periods so I have books to reference to.  Creative people have evolved just like the internet has.  Some of us even go to the place that we are designing to acquire primary research.  Some of us talk about things with other creative people, so that the exchange of ideas happen.  These methods help serendipity happen as well as promote different types of thinking and help us break out of our bubble.  Breaking out of a bubble is what creative people are good at naturally, so you should give them some credit.  Even today creative people are likely to be the people that study abroad, leave their homes for a while to move around, or participate in cultural festivals where they have no idea what they are doing.  They are willing to take chances and look extremely ridiculous (and stupid) in the hope that they will learn something new.  There have been plenty of times where I have felt both of these things, but I have walked away learning much about a group of people.  When I seek out people for friendships I tend to look for people that will be okay with this side of me.  They don't have to join me, they just have to let me be me, and then listen to me talk about it later.  Most of the people I find though are very open people, who are capable of examining a problem from the many different sides, probably because I consider myself to be that way.  That being said that doesn't mean that we don't hold different opinions and that I don't have to encounter them.  Serendipity isn't just tied to the internet, it can also happen everyday and Eli Pariser is underestimating that just like he is underestimating the power of creativity and the people who consider themselves creatives.

Pt. 3

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways you yourself have altered."
                                         - Nelson Mandela

Alright, this book makes excellent points about the possible effects of technology like hindering creativity, the increasing lack of interaction of people, the decreasing of people meeting organically, and the fact that the world has become technology focused.  However Eli Pariser, only ever examines these subject from one or 2 different views.  His lack of creativity in examining these issues, ultimately bores me, because of the repetitive nature the information is presented in.  He presents a real world example of the assertion he is about to make, he makes it, then he rambles on and on about the possible negative effects often in a very long-winded, roundabout fashion.  His lack of creativity in viewing these problems ironically, illustrates the very principle he entitled his book about.  He never acknowledges that being human is singular, and that while, yes, we can be influenced and possibly controlled that people ultimately make their own decisions, and no amount of manipulating will change that.  Yes, some people will be very susceptible to it.  However, there will be a part of the population (probably what is left of the creative types who he alleges are becoming a dying breed) that isn't susceptible to it, and will forever make decisions independent of manipulation. He continually underestimates the human race as a whole.  At that point there of course will be a counter movement that rebels against technology.  This is history: art history, world history, almost all history that has to do with humans follows these rules.  There is an order or a way of doing something; it goes to far and in comes the rebellion against it.  In particular, I can say theatre history is structured this way and wouldn't shock me if most history is.  The rebellion eventually becomes culturally accepted and experimented with, and eventually becomes part of society.  There will be a rebellion against technology we just aren't there yet.  For him to believe that technology defies the rules that history has proven true is arrogant.  Further more, the issues he presents are mostly examined in the sense that they are problems with very few acknowledgment of the benefits or the fact that humanity is evolving just like technology.  He takes those facts into account very little.  Actually his lack of creativity in handling and presenting these problems makes this book extremely hard to read of me.  I much prefer Hacked to The Filter Bubble.  As a person who seeks to solve problems from multiple angles his lack of even acknowledgment of them frequently grinds on my nerves and makes him come across as preachy, undercuts his authority, and makes me feel like I'm being forced to go to church while reading this book.  All this being said he does make some very relevant points, he just really present them better and have more views represented except his own.

Non-State Actors

With mainly the exception of ISIS, I'm not sure how much power non-state powers actually hold.  While yes, they can do small things like make life harder by slowing down a server or maybe blacking out a city block, because of an implanted computer virus I'm not sure what they can accomplish on a grand scale.  I'm not sure what ISIS can do currently on a grand international scale.  The thing that is terrifying about ISIS is that it is promoting it's belief in a way that is likely to grow it's followers, so that eventually it could do something on a more global grand scale.  I would say that as a whole what it scary about organizations like ISIS and the anonymous message is the factor of unknowns.  It is unknown how big or small their organization is, the skills that the members have, or their possible list of priorities and where you fit in them.  The lack of knowledge is what makes them dangerous.  Most of these organizations don't seem to understand that the less they are on anyone's radar the more likely they are to actually get anything done, so to me the ones that make threats and are known about via social media or any other form really aren't the ones I'm scared of.  Knowledge is power.  The most I know about something or someone the better I can prepare for their attack or beat it.  The ones that are scary are the ones hiding in their secrecy and waiting to strike in such a way that gives nothing away.  This is also what makes it difficult to write about them from a media standpoint.  This is probably one of the many reasons why new sites gets facts wrong, and inherent lack of information.  Then when something like The Onion or The Daily Show does a segment on it, because there is a lack of knowledge in the first place it's easy to get wayyyyyy off course to the point where you convince people (like conspiracy theorists) that it's true who then convince more people and it's an awful cycle.  This creates an insane amount of information discourse, because the The Onion or Daily Show isn't going to print a retraction or tell anybody that the original article was wrong.

Social Media and ISIS

From reading the research into ISIS I find them extremely smart.  Everything they are doing allows them to connect with the younger generation, who are more capable of being swayed.  In addition the post they put out and their command of social media gives them the appearance of a functioning entity with a government that is acting in the best interests of people.  Particularly the magazine to me was striking.  The branding and presentation of it gives the image that it was put together by professional people, who are well informed about what they are talking about.  Between all of this they have established an image of credibility that is believable.  If I were uninformed on the subject and I started looking at the materials they are circulating I would believe them.  I always assumed that organizations like this didn't really go anywhere, because they didn't understand how to market or communicate with people who held different opinions and had different experiences than themselves.  This proves that these types of organizations have evolved with the modern age and now demonstrate an understanding of how to convert not only people, but mass amounts of people to their opinions.

It's a harrowing statement.  It scares me.