From inphobe.blogspot.com
I saw this TED Talk on Facebook and felt some serious cognitive dissonance. It’s an Eli Pariser presentation on the “Filter Bubble” many popular websites apply to customize a user’s web experience and parcel out information that “suits” them. But in the process of this algorithmic filtering based on a user’s past web activity, locale and a host of other information, opinions and ideas that don’t fit the user’s presumed preferences get left out.
The filter bubble makes me particularly concerned about information, news and ideas related to violence against women. Unlike other forms of crime and violence, violence against women is subject to a strange kind of endless social debate – is it violence that needs to be addressed in public? Or is it just “between him and her”? It it murder of women grounded in power and control or “honour killing”, explained away by “culture”? Is it rape or did she “ask for it”? I know where I fall in the debates but I want to understand where others fall. I want to read how others position the issue and, where necessary, challenge it in a way people can connect with and respect even if they disagree. How can I even begin to do that if I’m trapped in my own happy internet bubble?
Which brings me to the issue that causes me to hyperventilate every so often: net neutrality. How much more entrenched our bubbles prisons will be if websites that can’t afford high speed and quality get filtered out – not necessarily by algorithms in this case, but by users themselves. Just thinking about my own impatience on the web in a context of “net partiality” makes me weep. Websites such as the Ontario Women’s Justice Network, METRAC’s home website, onefamilylaw.ca and challengesexualviolence.org, all sites that METRAC helps administer, simply won’t have the relevance, ease-of-discovery or ease-of-use they have now if net neutrality is lost.
Check out the Save The Internet Coalition for more excellent and terrifying information about net neutrality.
