The term filter bubble has been coined to describe the situation of online users which---due to filtering algorithms---live in a personalised information universe biased towards their own this http URL this paper we use an agent-based simulation framework to measure the actual risk and impact of filter bubble effects occurring in online communities due to content or author based personalisation algorithms. Observing the strength of filter bubble effects allows for opposing the benefits to the risks of this http URL our simulation we observed, that filter bubble effects occur as soon as users indicate preferences towards certain topics.We also saw, that well connected users are affected much stronger than average or poorly connected users. Finally, our experimental setting indicated that the employed personalisation algorithm based on content features seems to bear a lower risk of filter bubble effects than one performing personalisation based on authors.
The importance and the effects of information propagation and perception in social networks and information portals has been analysed in various contexts. Serendipity discovery of non-relevant items in digital libraries @cite_11 shows a general benefit of being inspiring for seeking information and thinking out of the box. The impact on political processes and democracy was discussed in @cite_8 . A psychological study addressed the effects of information presentation and forgetting processes in social networks @cite_4 .
@cite_8 @cite_4 @cite_11
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This paper explores the potentially perverse effects of voter microtargeting, delineating how the very same techniques that empower political candidates to be more efficient and effective in their campaigning may also undermine the political and social fabric of the democracies in which those candidates seek office. The first part of the paper reviews the apparent attraction and stated goals of voter microtargeting and the technical processes upon which it relies. The second part draws out the ethical and political implications of the practice, pointing to some troubling empirical findings. The paper considers how microtargeting contributes to (1) an increased willingness and ability to deliver messages on wedge issues that would be extremely divisive in a more public forum; (2) voter discrimination and de facto disenfranchisement, (3) a chilling of political participation due to perceived violations of voters' privacy, and (4) a general trend toward single issue politics that leads to increased partisanship among voters and ambiguous political mandates for elected representatives. The final part of the paper introduces Soap Box: a project (initiated by the author) to develop a website that will act as a clearinghouse for targeted political advertising. The website aims to make these messages available to all-comers, forcing campaigns to account for and reconcile the different positions they present to different audiences. The paper concludes with a discussion of the limits of an approach that seeks to combat the more worrisome aspects of voter microtageting by exposing the tailored messages to greater public scrutiny. Although a burgeoning literature has shown that practice effects and socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting can reshape the memories of speakers and listeners involved in a conversation, it has generally failed to examine whether such effects can propagate through a sequence of conversational interactions. This lacuna is unfortunate, since sequences of social interactions are more common than single, isolated ones. The present research explores how people exposed to attitudinally biased selective practice propagate the practice and forgetting effects into subsequent conversations with attitudinally similar and dissimilar others and, through these conversations, affect subsequent acts of remembering. The research establishes that the propagation of retrieval-induced forgetting and practice effects is transitive. It also determines when attitude influences propagation. These findings are discussed in the context of the formation of collective memories. While many digital libraries focus on supporting defined tasks that require targeted searching, there is potential for enabling serendipitous discovery that can serve multiple purposes from aiding with the targeted search to suggesting new approaches, methods and ideas. In this research we embedded a tool in a novel interface to suggest other pages to examine in order to assess how that tool might be used while doing focused searching. While only 40 of the participants used the tool, all assessed its usefulness or perceived usefulness. Most participants used it as a source of new terms and concepts to support their current tasks; a few noted the novelty and perceived its potential value in serving as a stimulant.