Do advertisements negatively affect our society

Between rose-red and jet-black How the internet affects our opinion

How do filter bubbles work?

A first step in this direction was z. B. with the study of the phenomenon of Filter bubbles made. The term was invented by Eli Pariser, author and former head of the activist platform, embossed. It is based on the assumption that individual users only perceive the Internet through filters created by algorithms. The danger of living in a bubble in which everyone agrees is increasing. According to various research results, such filter bubbles are not as dramatic as yet.

So has z. B. the research project #Data donation reveal that the Search results of the individual users Google are not as personalized as assumed. Scientist the Technical University of Kaiserslautern found that out of around nine search results on prominent politicians and parties, only one or two differ from one another. In the case of parties, there are more deviations with three to four results. However, if one takes into account the stronger regionalization, for example through the websites of individual local chapters, only one or two deviations remain. At Google News the differences are similarly small.

The discussion about filter bubbles is "Completely derailed", also criticized the head of the Oxford Internet Institutes Helen Margetts in an interview with the Daily mirror. Because despite personalization, users are z. B. at Facebook exposed to more people and opinions than when reading a single newspaper, for example. Above all, it is also important transparency:

In order to improve our political world, we inevitably have to start making demands on Facebook and Twitter. Their algorithms are secret and yet shape what we see. Your argument against it is always your company secret. But their business model is advertising. You don't have to say how they show advertising. Still they can explain which criteria are used to display which messages.

Loosen up the digital comfort zone

If you still want to loosen up your own digital comfort zone and take a look over its edge more often, you can do various things:

1. Leave few traces of data, because this way large providers get less information to categorize users precisely: It takes a bit of time, but with various Privacy AddOns such as B. Ghostery, Click & Clean or uBlock Origin can be z. B. tracker block on websites. Lightbeam does the Tracking cookies visible, through which users can be tracked while surfing. So you can see which tracker from third-party providers track movements in the network and what information, for example Facebook collects even though you are not currently surfing the network. No AddOns want to install, you can get ahead with a little creativity: Regularly clearing the browser data and surfing with different browsers can also help a bit.

2. Avoid Google searches: Search engines like Duckduckgo or Startpage collect significantly less data than market leaders Google. The metasearch engine Unbubble goes even further: here the results of other search engines are scoured in order to avoid personalization and the weighting of interest-based or paid content.

3. Keep an eye on other ranges of opinion: In social networks it is worth following people, organizations and media whose attitude you tend not to share. You don't have to reward annoying, annoying or even wrong posts with likes. To banish them completely from the feed would limit your own horizon. Before the self-composed digital cozy corner becomes too fluffy and any irritation is lost, it is better to follow a few parties, politicians, Internet celebrities and scientists whose opinions you would not sign or vote for. On pages like Message table or Newstral you can also get an overview of the current headlines - also from media that you might not necessarily subscribe to.