Inside the Bubble of the Like-Minded
All the big websites look after us almost like parents: they pick the most suitable content for us and save us time and effort. But this is turning into a serious problem for society. The filter bubble makes us more closed to other opinions and more aggressive, drags many of our ugliest traits into the spotlight, and robs us of the nuance and beauty of communication.
02Tristan Harris: The Knight of Honest Technology
“The closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience”—that is how Tristan Harris is known. His name made headlines with the notorious film The Social Dilemma, which drew plenty of attention but never led to much real change. His work embodies everything that is “broken” in today’s online life: the manipulative practices that have become a threat to our future as a species. Tristan Harris is not only the most recognizable champion of a free and democratic internet. Not only a thorough researcher who draws attention to the ways we are manipulated. He is also the man who warned a decade ago that the path technology was taking would lead us into a world of mammoth companies more powerful than the largest states. Into a time when we can no longer hold our attention while reading. Into filter bubbles that grotesquely distort the way we get our information. Does he think we can reverse these trends? Can the internet become a free place without monopolies, where information is delivered democratically, with respect for the personal data and views of every user… What are his ideas for the future of the web?
03Anonymous or Troll: Who Is Hiding Behind the Profile?
Who are you? The person behind that supposedly authentic profile across from me? First we were anonymous by default, then it became the norm to put our real names behind the hate we spew on social media. Is anonymity freedom, or does freedom come when you always know who is on the other side, and where is the line heading next?
