Fascinating video

[ImmenseDisciple]

All of us who spend a reasonable amount of time online should make ourselves aware of what's happening "behind the scenes", and this short video is about how facebook & google, among an increasing number of sites, filter what they show us to try and keep us satisfied - and in doing so, unintentionally distort our view of the world.

Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles"

Ed: Also, didn't really know which forum section to post this in, but as it's to try and increase our awareness of the world equipping us to be more responsible, I thought "Growing In Christ" as suitable as any... If a mod wants to move it, that's fine!

[doug3]

Thank for sharing this. I had just noticed that Facebook was filtering my stream this week and I was only getting certain friends status updates. You have to change a setting to get them back, which I did. Can't remember what I did but am sure someone else will know. It is not good because the whole idea of my using Facebook was to keep up with ALL my real friends and family members who are on Facebook. Their meddling hinders that. I can see the use if you have 2000 'friends' (most of whom are strangers), but not all do, and I think we should have the power of decision not them.

[ImmenseDisciple]

That's right, I think on facebook it was only shortly after they started filtering that they brought in the option to turn it off, which is nice - if you scroll right down to the bottom of your feed, on the right hand side of the bar to show "Older posts" is an "Edit Options" button, which brings up a preferences window on which "Friends and pages you interact with most" is the default setting; if you change it to "All of your friends and pages" it turns off the filter.

I've just double checked, and I'm fairly certain Google has no option to turn off the filter they apply.

[Amos_with_goats]

All of us who spend a reasonable amount of time online should make ourselves aware of what's happening "behind the scenes", and this short video is about how facebook & google, among an increasing number of sites, filter what they show us to try and keep us satisfied - and in doing so, unintentionally distort our view of the world.

Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles"

Ed: Also, didn't really know which forum section to post this in, but as it's to try and increase our awareness of the world equipping us to be more responsible, I thought "Growing In Christ" as suitable as any... If a mod wants to move it, that's fine!

Thank you for posting that, I do not believe that it is a unique phenomena... just as the speaker said, it is as though we are in 1915 in the internet age.

Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun... and this is no exception.

We all would agree that 'heaping up teachers that tickle our ears' is not a good thing... but we have a tendency to do it.

From our political pundits, to the denomination we fellowship in.. even the translation of scripture we choose we tend to gravitate to that which is 'like minded'.

There is a certain amount of that here... this is a Christian, protestant board. Some filters are appropriate.

Other filters, especially those we are not consciously aware of can be very inappropriate.

I think it is a very good question to ponder in the "Growing in Christ" forum...

... What filters are we imposing or accepting between us and the Lord?