The online world is abuzz with speculation about how Google Plus will fare against Facebook. But behind the excitement, the debate rages on how good the increasingly algorithm-driven Web is. Online activist Eli Pariser's views on “filter bubbles” seem pertinent now, writes Karthik Subramanian

After the launch of another social network, it is tempting for us to clear our throat and shout ‘Amandla'.

Social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and the ubiquitous Google search have deeply impacted the times we live in. And it is leading us to believe that we live in a world where the collective consciousness speaks in one voice — the Web.

But appearances are deceptive and our understanding of the way the Web works may not be entirely accurate or adequate.

At the iconic TED event held at Long Beach in March, this year, American online activist Eli Pariser, best known for running the website www.moveon.org, drew attention to “filter bubbles” that companies such as Google and Facebook create. By studying various parameters of not only the person accessing the information, through various ‘preferences,' but also the place from where the information is accessed, the companies create a personalised web experience for each of its users. The launch of Google Plus is another step in this direction.

Gatekeepers of information

Pariser argues that while, on the surface, personalisation of the Web appears to be good, it may draw us away from the healthier open environment the World Wide Web originally was. Though social media has helped replace a group of editors with what seems to be a network of people, the truth, he insists, is that algorithms have become the actual gatekeepers of information.

And since algorithms are nothing but codes, without ethics embedded in them, they are more ruthless with censorship than what meets our eye. The algorithms only read the links clicked as recommendations, and ignores others as unimportant. There is no place for dissent or alternative views. More importantly, no one knows for sure what is being edited out.

To explain it simplistically, here's how I used the Web way back in 1995, when I started using a personal computer. The Web started for me, like it did for my generation that was probably the first among those large scale digital immigrants, as a place that would help me discover things. Never did I think that it could revolve around people I already knew and could easily meet. More importantly, the not-so-fine tuned Web meant I kept discovering uncomfortable viewpoints. According to Pariser, this is very important as we associate the Web with democracy.

The same warning bell was sounded in the viral video of 2004 called ‘EPIC 2014'. The flash video produced by journalists Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, which was later presented at the Poynter Institute, predicted a fictional future for the digital media in a courtroom battle between the New York Times and Google.

Sloan and Thompson had predicted that the Web would expand to become a place where every user would be capable of editing news in real time. But they also warned that the Web, because of all the personalisation that would happen, would become a place of super niches, a pile-up of useless trivia and facts, and not knowledge.

For further reading online about personalisation and filter bubbles check:

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html and http://robinsloan.com/epic/