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We shall also say NO to What Google and Facebook Hide...

Thanks for sharing Berrin, I found his points around these quotes very important...

It is amazing to think about what has been filtered out for us and what is being allowed in our little bubble and we don't have a say in the criteria being used.

"What we're seeing is a passing of the torch, from human gatekeepers to algorithmic ones." And the thing is that the algorithms don't yet have the kind of embedded ethics that the editors did."

"You couldn't have a functioning democracy if citizens didn't get a good flow of information." So the newspaper editors realized their important job and media ethics emerged. It wasn't perfect but it got everyone through the last century.

Filters should sort by topics that are relevant, important, uncomfortable, challenging, and other points of view - and that isn't what is happening with the alogrithmic filtering that is being implemented by Google, Facebook etc.

Berrin wrote:What Google and Facebook Hide

Google does not hide it.
If you don't like google search results you can always use bing, ask, yahoo or duckduckgo or you can start your own search engine.

Or you can use google through a proxy in another country to get different results.

If you are looking for news you can always visit a news portal that you trust and watch the news directly.
I don't see anything wrong with google trying to provide more relevant results to people in different locations.

kanelli wrote:Filters should sort by topics that are relevant, important, uncomfortable, challenging, and other points of view

How does google know what is comfortable or uncomfortable, or what is challenging or what is your point of view?
Can you think of an algorithmic criteria that will make these kind of filters possible?

I think his point was that the newspaper editors were using judgement about those ranges of topics for their readers, but the point is that the new algorithmic filters cannot use such judgement. I can't think of how they can do that, so I wish they wouldn't use the filters at all. Basically, I think it comes down to money, targeting links and advertising to people to increase profits. If you think about it, big business is what creates most of the problems we can see.

All computer users are not experts and it seems to be increasingly difficult for people to understand how info is shared and used, and how they can protect their privacy and be aware of the ins and outs of the content being chosen for them by such filters. If young people are viewing only content shaped by a limited world view, does that make them useful voters when they reach voting age?

Everyone does it, my mobile is from the UK and installed yahoo news app gives me a totally different bunch of news headlines than if I use my laptop. Sometimes on an interesting story I can't even trace the same story on yahoo on my laptop.

Andyba wrote:Google does not hide it.
If you don't like google search results you can always use bing, ask, yahoo or duckduckgo or you can start your own search engine.

well i guess algorithmic criteria is used by all of those search engines. The point we are making is that who gives them the criteria for algorithmic filtering? and what for? we as the world citizens have the right to reach all types of news and info we want, as long as it comes for free. we decide what we want to read on the internet and consequently come to some kind of conclusion over it ..

I had heard about Google that Google is tracking users personal data when they disable cookies. I think Google and Facebook has been panalized for same.