Bubbles, Censorship, Filtering, Personalisation, Relevancy… I’m tired of it all. Tired yet mad.
- Personalisation is the process of tailoring pages to individual users’ characteristics or preferences.
- Censorship is the control of the information and ideas circulated within a society.
- Filtering search results is a fancy way of saying censorship.
When I search the Internet I do NOT want results tailored to me. I want real information presented to me without bias. If and when I want biased information I can and will search for it. I’m quite capable of doing that. I am a free thinking person who is capable of searching and discerning what to read or not read. I don’t want a 3rd party (google/facebook/BB) censoring, er filtering information for me.
I used to like Google, I really did. It wasn’t all that long ago when they respected users privacy and the search results were unbiased (not tailored) and impartial but now they seem to care more about competing with facebook and other social media than being the best search engine. The new Google motto of Search Plus Your World has changed everything.
John and I noticed a trend with our searches so we deliberately and intentionally tested it. Obviously we both have different tastes and this was being reflected in our searches. Our search results were filtered/tailored based upon our gender, our search history, our click history. The problem with this is that as I click on things that I want to see and I agree with, I just keep getting more search results geared toward that. All the other results gets demoted (filtered). I wanted to know what I was missing out on!
I don’t want to live in a bubble that only shows me things IT thinks I will like or want to view. When I search for information I don’t want the results to be filtered UNLESS I intentionally filter them with various options. I want to do my own processing and filtering, thank you.
TedTalk – What FACEBOOK and GOOGLE are hiding from the world
Breaking Out Of The Bubble
Breaking out of the bubble and away from the grasping claws of Google isn’t easy. It is something that I’m looking into. So feel free to share any ideas with me.
Want Out But Still Want A Good Search?
StartPage: startpage.com/
When you search with Startpage the Web results are generated by Google but Startpage does NOT record your IP address! Nor do they share your personal information with any third party.
DuckDuckGo: duckduckgo.com/
Provides a clean interface together with a no-tracking privacy policy. Offers keyboard shortcuts to navigate and zero-click information sources. See their privacy page for more info.
Bing might be a good option for now… but I can’t help but wonder if they will end up going down Google Street too?
And Just for The Conspiracy Theorists…
Did you know that both the big G and FB (along with those in Amazon and LinkedIn) attended the Bildeberg Conference 2011? If you don’t know what I’m referring to… then StartPage is your friend. 😉
I know I might sound like a crackpot to some… and if you think I am that’s okay. Simply disregard this post as the raving of a mad woman. But don’t say you weren’t warned. 😉
I didnt notice much of a difference in the comparative searches I did on Google and Startpage. Maybe because I didnt search for anything hugely different or radical?
Hi DoE,
It’s not something that I noticed quickly… I noticed it over time and then once John and I started talking about it. I was logged into google and looking into photography courses… the first 5 pages of hits were all from mommy bloggers. Then DH did the same search logged in as himself and he kept getting hits for all the camera (commerce) stores!
I used another search engine and got the results I was looking for.
Then, I was doing searches for child slavery and child prostitution in India. I was quite limited with the G search yet Bing gave me more varied hits… gave me more news sites and less blogs. I read blogs a lot. I search for blogs and I do click on the hits. Obviously G knows this and tailors my search results.
It’s all part of their new algorithms. It’s not really new and a quick search (even with google!) will yield the most basic info.
I have noticed some similar trends with my own searches lately. Frustrating when I am looking for new information and news for differing points of view. I do love a good consipracy from time to time Susan! 😉 Thanks for the info.
I really quite like the DuckDuckGo search I linked to above… it’s good!
I don’t think I do enough searching to have noticed a difference. I do have an avid conspiracy theorist in my house so I will direct this post to him. He will love to know that some of my “friends” are into it!
Thanks for the notice though. I will look more carefully. I know Google has had pop ups to read regarding privacy but haven’t read the fineprint.
Hi Ruby,
Yes they did recently change their privacy policies, which would give me a week of ranting posts if I were to start. But I won’t.
Let me know what your fellow conspiracy theorist comes up with. 😉
This is news to me Susan, I’ll have to keep an eye out from now on as google is my go to for all searches:) as always you alert us non-techies to the techie issues of the www. Thank you!
If you aren’t logged into Google then it isn’t as bad as if you are logged in… but it still filters information. Maybe for some users this really isn’t a big deal, but it sure is for me. The bottom line is either power (from user profiles and data collation) or advertising. Either way – it is yuck and wrong. Either way, it is censorship and puts me in a bubble.
I don’t like Bing either. Same problem. However I think the problem is widespread throughout the media. I rarely watch the news but caught it last night & was horrified by the lack of actual information ~ replaced by hysteria & emotive reporting. Ick! Can people no longer evaluate information for themselves? We are being brainwashed, I tell you. Brainwashed! ☺
Thank you for an excellent and thought-provoking blog. I totally agree – filtering is just another word for censoring. The fact that it’s being down by algorithms doesn’t make any more palatable!
I had no idea this was happening, I had noticed more difficulty in finding the information I needed, but assumed it was because there is so much stuff added to the internet every day.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Very interesting! Thank you!
Now I know why I have to scroll through about 4 pages plus to find anything I’m really looking for on G.
Hi Susan
The TOR Project provides help with “breaking out of the bubble”. https://www.torproject.org/index.html.en Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.
All the best, Kylie 🙂
Thanks Kylie, I’ll be sure to look into the TOR Project 🙂
Hi Mrs Prioli
Mum forwarded this onto me to read… thanks for helping me better understand what’s going on! I have a question; did you (and everybody who is talking about it) realise this was going on, apart from your own research? Was there a ‘wiki leak’ or something, or has everybody just really noticed it on their own accord? Just out of interest…
Thanks!
Jess
Hi Jess,
Lovely to have you drop by! Social Media is a hobby of mine… I use it a little but study it a lot. I often need to hear new things a few times before the ‘penny drops’. And this is what happened for me in this instance. I follow a few blogs who had talked about this ‘bubble’ effect. I didn’t take any notice for about 1 year. It wasn’t until I received a camera as a gift and went searching for information that I started to realise that my searches were very narrow. All my search results were for Christian or mummy bloggers who like photography whereas my husband was getting camera stores. So we noticed it gradually. but then I started to keep my eyes and ears open. Nowadays (I only homeschool one child now) I have a little more time on my hands and so I actively read this kind of information. I suspect that most homeschool mums aren’t aware of this though… they have their hands full with homeschooling. 😉
No, no such ‘wiki leak’ per se, only other bloggers who have noticed and write about it. And, things like the TED talk as contained in this blog post.
Thanks Mrs Prioli! We have another question for you: where does Google Chrome fit into all this? What browser do you use? We switched from IE to Firefox years ago because Firefox was better, but maybe two years ago Firefox wouldn’t let us type in a URL – it had to be a link you could click, otherwise you had to type it into a search engine on your home page or on your bookmarks bar, and go from there. So, we went to Google Chrome and have been quite happy with it, but now with all this Google… stuff going on, Mum and I are wondering if we should be using another browser.
Can you please shed some light onto our quandaries?
Thanks!
Jess
What a great question, Jess! And as one who is,er used to be an avid Chrome user I can say that on the weekend recently past I made the switch from Chrome to Safari, as my default browser.
I loved Chrome… it’s memory is huge but it’s social profiling or data mining is also huge, thus I made the switch. FF or Opera are viable alternatives. So either swicth to these are take the following steps:
1) log out of google when not using it.
2) Pause your google history and search – in other words, Google Search, YouTube and Gmail history stop recording your every move.
3) be familiar with google’s privacy – http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/tools/
4) Use startpage or duckduckgo as alternate search engine’s. (as listed in my post)
5) Install a browser app – these are several that block about 500 trackers of your searches, history, etc like http://www.abine.com/dntdetail.php
I have used Chrome and loved it… and I still like it as a browser but don’t like the way I feel compromised. DH and I are in the middle of trying to totally shift from google to alternatives, but ias we’ve been deep in the middle of the Big G for a few years now it isn’t a quick nor easy task, but one that we’re prepared to take a few weeks to do.
Thanks!