Filter Bubbles and Censorship

Every day, people are bombarded with information. We scroll through our news feed to see what our friends are up to. We open up our news apps to see what's happening in the world around us. We watch TV or listen to the radio or a podcast before heading to work for the day. What we may not realize is that much of the information we are getting has been tailored to us. In the age of customization where you can have tailored wine selections, custom shoes, and personalized shampoo shipped to your door we tend to embrace customization. The Filter Bubble we live in however ensures that we may only see what is deemed relevant to us. According to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg "A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa." Some may agree with this statement but it is important to think of this idea on a larger scale. 

If people are only seeing the information they agree with it will lead to a deepening of the divide between political parties and similar groups. Think about the things you look up every day on your phone, you assume that when you search something you are getting the information that is most relevant to that topic. What you are actually getting, however, is what filters ad artificial intelligence has deemed to be most relevant to you about that topic. This can be a huge deal because "the thing is that you don't decide what gets in. And more importantly, you don't actually see what gets edited out." 

So does this count as censorship? Do our search engines and news sources have the right to dictate what we see on a daily basis? Technically yes, to both. For more information please view the TED talk on which this post is based by clicking here.