Q 258. It is said that the results of the U.S. presidential election in 2016 were influenced by the "filter bubble" phenomenon on user exposure on social media. What is a filter bubble? What are its potential applications in Business World? 

 

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1.   What is filter bubble?

Ans. Filter bubble refer to an intellectual isolation of a person point of view. This can happen by using algorithms by assuming what person would like to see basis his click behaviour and browsing history. By presenting such information repeatedly to a person then that person may never come across contracting view point which will lead in to his intellectual isolation.

 

2.   U.S. presidential election in 2016.

During U.S. presidential election in 2016 few experts observed that filter bubble situation was created on social media especially on Instagram and Facebook basis ideology because of which people were kept deprived of other point of views which led some population lean towards particular candidate (to be precise Donald Trump). To avoid such situation which may have impact on democratic process, experts have suggested that social media should proactively recommend content to people that lies outside one’s filter bubble so people can make informed decision.

 

3.   “Filter Bubble” applications in Business World?

Filter bubble can be used very effectively in E-commerce industry. Due to filter bubble, company does not have to spend tons of money on marketing to find the prospective buyer for their product. Basis Filter bubble your product will be shown to a person who already has an interest which will lead in to more sales and profit.

Filter Bubble:

The term “Filter Bubble” was first coined by Eli Pariser, who is an activist and entrepreneur focused on technology to serve democracy. Filter bubble means an algorithm which does selective isolation of the information based on the interest of the user, supposedly that can result from Personalized search, web pages visited, Location, Search history and their personal posts in social media.

Filter bubble leads to bias in the information. When a society or group of people allege about something, based on the preconceived information about that allegation, search engines in the web provides results which agrees with the people’s mind. Because of the algorithm in the search engine, it isolates the disagreeing information and indirectly creates “duplication and Publication bias” for the corresponding user. Usually this algorithm comprises the search history, language, personal information, web page visited, Location, etc.

Two schools of thought:

We can say that the filter bubble misleads the user and make user continue to rely on their preconceived mindset, by excluding the conflicting information.

On the other side, Filter bubble helps us in streamlining on our interest.

In OTT, We will be suggested with movies you may like at the top and you will continue to watch the same journal of movies which can be considered that the filter bubble is streamlining our options  or it direct us only in particular journal limiting our chances to explore the other journals.

 

In one of the search engine, when I am searching about Keto diet, my search results are influenced by my search input. This is one example where the influence  (search input) and the impact(search results) are clearly visible.

 

Why is keto good	Why is keto bad

 

Even if the motivation behind designing this search is to improve and speed up the retrieval of information, it may not always result in what was intended.

 

Few ‘Filter Bubble’ applications in Business world:

1.   Marketing:

Identifying the potential customers based on their search history.

Influencing them through one click e-commerce advertisements for the products which might tempt them in to buying it.

Marketing of the information or ideology is also feasible by increasing the visibility of the target ideology to the relevant group of people, even to the extent of choosing leader or fall of economy.  

Marketing can also be done by making an information invisible to the user.

2.   Survey:

It helps in pooling the people of same interest or people belonging to the same location or people of same profession which helps to categorize the target group.

3.   Business Intelligence:

In Most of the cases, Business Intelligence Technology handles a large amount of structured or unstructured data gathered respective to particular filter bubble in order to identify, create or develop the new business opportunities.

The phenomenon although has been existing for years, it came into much prominence and scrutiny after the 2016 US presidential elections. During the presidential campaign, millions of US internet users were bombarded with the Pro-Trump news and most of them turned out to be fake. Although, the viewer preferences have the influence in what they see, confirmation bias subdued the validity of claims and influenced the election results to a larger extent.

 

This so called filter bubble phenomenon is common in the business world. Popular companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn etc., use this algorithm to reach their audience effectively. One can see how Amazon identifies common buying patterns and persuades the customers of its popular products. Here is another example of how this works. A simple google search on the term “India” will render different results depending on different locations. An example shown here is the search result from google.co.in (Picture 1) and Google.com.pk  (Picture 2)

 

 

What is a filter bubble?

Filter bubble is an algorithm based on which internet users get customised news feeds in all the digital platforms. This kind of tailored information is influenced by several factors such as the user’s past preferences, demo graphical, geographical, psychological, ideological, religious, and political affiliations. This introduces the confirmation bias in validating the facts. Because, the algorithm reinforces the user’s belief and any counter arguments and evidences will be out of reach. In other words, algorithm forms multiple clusters or bubbles from the whole population. By this way, individuals become delusional and stay within the group of like minded individuals causing the bubble.

 

Potential applications in Business world

Businesses need to come up with competitive ideas and strategies in order to succeed. Business can exploit the advantages of this “Filter bubble” to identify the right customer segment (where it gets the biggest bang for the buck!!!) and also predict the customer choice precisely. Filter bubble can be of practical use in the business world with its potential clustering nature, especially in targeted ad campaigns. There are advantages like the cost effective marketing strategy as opposed to hefty mass-marketing methods.

Filter bubbles are extremely useful in e-commerce and market place businesses. It helps business identify the target market segment based on individuals purchasing behaviour. A game development company will be able to market the new product to the teenagers whereas a pharmaceutical company can promote a prescription drug to the vulnerable communities using the algorithms.

Filter bubble is  Method  that change  the information an individual user Whatever they have seen on internet on websites. The vision is because of  the weighted algorithm that search engines, social media sites E Commerce site,Education sites and marketers use to personalize user exp.

which affect an individual's online advertisements, social media news feeds and web searches, essentially insulate the person from outside influences and reinforce what the individual already thinks

Potential Application in Business World

 

Examples: US Presidential Election- it has been claimed that Donald trump has hired Russians to use FIlter bubble effect to ensure ALL US citizen can see Donald trump related things on internet more and more so Human has very short memory and if its keep pooing up infront of you that it has impact in your mind and you star watching Donald trump's speech and that can influence the skewness

 

Another Example is also on Your Ecommerece websites and Social media 

you can see in Face book whatever you trying to buy on AMAZON or Flipkart or other websites like you are looking kids video on youtube but on Facebook it keeps pooping to BUy kids book or toys and its keep coming

 

Another example :if you are doing Six sigma education search or MBA university search 

Facebook ,or any other social media Shows to another university to fill the form of MBA or If you go on AMAZON on FB it keeps poping Six sigma books  

 

This can be use by business

improve sales numbers

improve Subscribers numbers

Degrade other product and can not be seen in First few searches

Change people perception

 

 

 

Filter bubble phenomenon coined by Eli Pariser, has  surged from media personalization, which leads to trapping of users to view particular offerings or a view point without the  view of contrasting things.  This phenomenon entails use of artificial intelligence and based on features like-  past  browsing history of user, online searches, demographic data, credit card purchase history etc, it is easy to predict the nature and viewpoint of the user, be it regarding political, social, cultural or commercial products.  Filter bubble was allegedly  used by third parties like Cambridge Analytica to analyse the facebook profile of millions of people for creating “Psychographic profile’’ of those users and making them view particular political content, thus accentuating bias and influencing the voting behavior and results of election.

 

Use of Filter bubble in business:

 

-       Based on the past buying, browsing through particular category of ad contents, users are offered tailored view of that particular categories of product ads, with few preferential sellers, who have subscribed to the business page  of platform such as facebook.

-       This selctive bias of ad contents, works both in same webpage and across the webpage, e.g- Amazon browsing history of certain contents, may cause   popping of similar kind of ad contents also in facebook. 

-       Filter bubble helps in generating leads and substantially improve the sales revenue.

-       Marketing becomes much easier, as interested customers are directly  targeted, rather than  wasting efforts in finding suitable customers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q 258. It is said that the results of the U.S. presidential election in 2016 were influenced by the "filter bubble" phenomenon on user exposure on social media. What is a filter bubble? What are its potential applications in Business World? 

 

What is a filter bubble?

A filter bubble is the result of algorithm and exploration science driven, what information would like to see based on the user’s location, past search behavior and search history of results. This means that results are based only on keywords.

Social sites in current Business World is easily sorted out the user search history based on the algorithm in built and user may experience the filter bubble every time scroll through your favorite news feed on Facebook or search on Google. These social sites could easily determine users most likely to engaging with based on the contents, search history, news feed rather than complete source of information.

Filter bubbles mainly refers to the state of “Intellectual Isolation” that can result from personalized searches on social search engines. With this, users become easily separated from most information that presents on opposing viewpoint. These bubbles are associated with search engines and social media sites.

 

Top Potential Applications in Current Business World:

There are more than 50 top potential applications are currently available in Business World, Users are connecting the world together at same time and browsing that information what they need. 

1.     Google.

2.     Facebook

3.     Amazon

4.     Twitter

5.     MSN

6.     Yahoo

7.     CNN

8.     Netflix and etc.

 

Filter Bubble: The following simple diagram explains about filter bubble and how user searching the information in top potential application in current business world.

In Social sites, if we consider all of these filters and algorithm together and we will understand easily what is filter bubble.

1.     The following diagram which explains about User filter bubble is their own personal and unique universe of information that user lives on online.

 

 

 

2.     In your filter bubble, depends on who you are and what you do.

 

 

3.     Social sites could easily determine which users are most likely to engage with based on the contents, search history, news feed information.

 

 

Beware Online “Filter Bubbles”:

Based on the search engine results (For Ex: Google), we may get a very different search results at the same time while searching on Google search engine. Even when were logged out, there are 57 signals which produced by google to identify mainly following information.

1.     Where user is sitting.

2.     Computer, Laptop or Mobile and Tablets being used by the respective users.

3.     What kind of browser user is using?

Personalized filters have been set for the respective users on social search engines at what you click on first and it can throw off that balance. Instead of a balance information diet, user can end up with surrounded information junk food.

According to Wall Street Journal Analysis, most of the top internet social sites installed on average of 64 data-laden cookies and user personal tracking beacons each. So, before accepting cookies, user need to thoroughly understand the privacy settings and security policy (Data sharing, information security classification and so on) for the respective social sites.

Internet users also should clean up the internet search history, cookies, temp files storage in their respective system on frequent basis.

 

Recommended settings in Individual and Organizational PC’s to avoid Filter Bubbles:

i)                  Periodic review (Individual) & Information Security Audit (Organizational)

ii)                 User Security settings and Clean up.

iii)                Delete Cookies or Block Cookies.

iv)                Delete Search and Watch History, Cache, Staging and Temp files.

v)                 Stay logged out always.

vi)                Encryption mode and Password settings.

vii)               Always focus on what user need rather than entertainment always.

viii)              Limiting the Personalized and Tailored aspects of the Web.

ix)                Custom and Optimized Settings.

x)                 Use the search Engine: SearchEncrypt.com

 

 

Filter Bubble Effect: SearchEncrypt.com

 

 

The user needs to use Private search encrypt engines are a wonderful way to avoid filter bubble. SearchEncrypt.com doesn’t track user search history and the search results based on keywords. Search Encrypt results are not influenced by user political views or history of past internet behavior.

We need the new gatekeepers to encode that kind of public life and sense of civic responsibility/accountability into the code that they’re writing in social sites in current business world so that we connect this world together with safe and secure manner.

 

Reference:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble

https://choosetoencrypt.com/search-engines/filter-bubbles-searchencrypt-com-avoids/

 

Thanks and Regards,

Senthilkumar Ganesan.

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: +91-7598124052.

 

 

Filter Bubble-1.0.docx

When A journalist was asking about a news feed to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook – “why is it so important a news feed and he replied, “A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa”.

 

The idea of relevance and the amount of information flowing in air is invisible and if you don’t pay attention to it could be a problem.

 

How this translates for example someone is interested in political movement and economic movement in his/her country and may like those pages in Facebook feed and he/she may expect any news feed from that aspect which is basically interest area should appear as news feed whenever someone opens his/her Facebook page but you might notice suddenly it may disappear from your Facebook feed and the reason because Facebook is looking at what are the links you are clicking and it is noticing you might have clicked some shopping link or some other link which might not your interest area and without your permission your news feed will disappear ,

 

Facebook not the only place this is happening. This is kind of algorithm editing of the web, Google is doing it too for example if I search for something and someone else searching for exactly the same thing at same time, we may get very different result from search engine. As per google it looks at 57 different signals example what kind of computer you logged in, what kind of browser you are using and where you are located, and it provide tailor made personalised results. So there is no standard google anymore and important thing is this is hard to see your search results different from anyone else’s.

 

This is not Google or Facebook there are host of the companies who is sweeping the web and doing similar kind of personalization. Business news on yahoo is now personalized where different people get different news based on their test.

 

So this is a problem and if you all take this together this is called filter bubble, your filter bubble is kind of your personal unique universe of information that you live in online.

 

Potential applications in Business World:

 

Presently due to filter bubble companies may face issue to attract prospective customer through various social media channels so the strategy would be which social media will help to breakthrough these filter bubbles and increase their visibility and valuable engagements

 

Since algorithm is controlling all this information based your personal universe and which is relevant to someone. The Social media companies must design algorithms to attract new customer and companies by creating platform basis not their personalization rather than focus on provide search result in such a way that to show the information which might : 1) Relevant 2)Important 3) Uncomfortable 4) challenging 5 ) other point of view. This will platform will help companies to introduce people to new ideas, new people and different perspective.

Filter Bubble is a situation where users on internet publish some opinion or information that is based on his / her beliefs and not taken concuss of others which in result of may be provide a wrong interpretation or mislead information.

It is mainly impacting on customer of eCommerce company  where base on browsing history it shows contents to users for procurement which will impact on other competitors product.

 

Based on your search history it will decide to show a content by default & not what you would like to see on internet.

Filter bubble as a phrase was first used by Eli Pariser in his 2011 New York Times bestselling book, The Filter Bubble: What the internet is hiding from you. It is a term used to describe the personalization of individual online experience by the use of computer algorithms. These algorithms customize what an online user sees based on his online history. For example, if a user has been reading articles that support a particular viewpoint, this algorithm will filter his feed such that he will be seeing mostly articles that support the viewpoint he holds. The user find himself in a kind of world created for him by this algorithm, a world where almost everyone leans towards his viewpoint, a world where the alternative viewpoint is silenced, this world is the filter bubble.

Online marketers are already taking advantage of the filter bubble through targeted advertisement. If you check about an item online, you will soon be bombarded with several adverts about that item. This has made marketing more effective as advertisements are now directed towards interested people who are more likely to make a purchase that any random person coming across the advert.

Businesses must first ensure that they a part of the filter bubble of a sizeable part of the market. They must maintain a regular and aggressive online presence. Web analytics can also be employed to  get reports on people that have us as part of their filter bubble, and more importantly who are those that do not have us. We can then strategize on how we can break into their bubbles.

Filter Bubble is the concept of algorithm representation which will be totally biased. filter bubble will change the perspective of an individual in a situation what ever they see or hear that supports his previous belief or interest.

Example:

In many of the pharma organizations there will be manpower cutoffs which is not actually the manpower reduction but reduction of non value added overhead reduction might be in top management or middle management. but in social media it is spread that there is a huge manpower reduction pharma industry and is organization is in huge losses and there is a high recession. it will result to drop in organization images and creates the fear in existing employees and impacts on the new recruitments of a particular organization.

 

Impact on business world:  When an regulatory audit conducted for an organization and out come of an audit will be posted in website. if the out come of an audit has any minor observation, it will be spread like the organization has failed to face the audit. The social media will not mention detail information or will not focus an actual information,  which may change the perspective view of individual whenever watching the news in website or social media.Based on the information which is available in website will leads to negative image of organization and led down the share value of certain organizations.

This would be the one of the adverse effects of the filter bubble.

Filter bubble is an intellectual isolation created by special algorithm which collect information and data from past browser history, previous search or previous area of interest, location etc. and provide result which users would want to see. 

 

Pros: In most of the time user will quickly find what is he looking for according to his area of interest. 

 

Example: Someone is interested latest gaming laptops and hence browsed for it in one side. now whenever he will visit any online shop the algorithm will check his past area of interest through past browsing and will show all the new gaming laptop automatically. 

 

Cons: As this algorithm will only show you what you things the way you want hence it will bring you away from the reality. 

 

For Example: Suppose a political leader/party has two sides. Good and Bad. In past I've only searched for his good things. So every time i will visit the site the smart algorithm will highlight me the similar news about the goodness of that party or person every time and will hide all other news which could be his bad side.

A filter bubble is an online platform terminology which emphasizes the existence of filtering the transparency and influencing the thinking pattern of a user. (Bubble is transparent | Filter Bubble means filtering transparency).

It is a technique to create bias and condition the mind of the user by 'telling them what they should believe in.'

It works on the principle of Algorithm considering multiple permutations and combinations of multiple factors like age, gender, last search, last few websites searched, etc. which fundamentally influences the way the ideas and information are encountered.

Application in Business World:

1.      Online Company Recommending book to customers as per their needs:

-   While a reader is online and using Kindle, an online company can easily capture detailed information like the pages the reader turned, was it read straight through or was it skipped by the reader, etc.

-  Based on this information gathered and additional algorithm strategy identified by the company, the online can provide customized recommendations to the reader

 

2.      Online Job Portal:

-   While people search the online job portal, there are multiple online course recommendation that are suggested to the user

-   This influences the user as they are provided with options available in the market to up-skill themselves.

 

3.      Employee Engagement:

-   The current lock-down period is an opportunity for many companies to explore and identify the best usage of Work From Home scenario.

-   An organization can have an online portal to up-skill the employees.

-   The Up-skill program suggested shall be based on the employee's band, experience, education background, etc. and can further suggest customized training programs in order to up-skill themselves.

“We become, neurologically, what we think.”

— Nicholas Carr

Popular lines by Nicholas Carr, supports and also briefly explains about the filter bubble. We become what we see repeatedly and we see what internet assumes we would like to see.

When websites uses algorithms to assume what a user want to see and then fetches the information to the user related to his/her wants, then this is called as filter bubble which is a type of internet isolation. We see example of filter bubble in our daily routine life. When we browse some specific product on amazon or flipkart but don’t buy that. Then whenever we go to any site we will see marketing ads of that product and of those products which are much similar to the product. Which creates an environment for the user to push him/her neurologically to purchase that product. This happens because of the algorithms used by companies. This uses the information of user like past browsing history, click behaviour and location to create such environment. Which we can call as intellectual isolation. This is a classic example of filter bubble. Google search engine and facebook news stream are the two perfect examples of filter bubble. This phenomenon is well explained by Pariser in his book named” Filter Bubble: What the internet is hiding from you”. He explains that suppose a person X searches for Term RIL on google, then he will start getting news on RIL and shares of RIL creating an environment for investing in RIL. But when another person searches for the same keyword, he will be getting some other news on investment based on his previous click pattern and browsing history. This will create two different impressions on mind of X and Y, according to Pariser, this could have good or bad effects on social discourse. But others say that it will impact negligibly.

In US elections in 2016, elections’ results are often called to be influenced by the filter bubble with facebook being the key electoral battle ground. Just with-in two weeks until voters votes, whatever happens on facebook and other social media platforms will have a deep impression on how the country votes and no one will eventually understand what is happening on the real ground. This is why our Facebook news feed is personalized to our likes and dislikes. And it’s done automatically. Basically we are in a filter bubble.

Potential Areas where filter bubble can fetch fantastic results are as below:

1-E-commerce

2-Sales and Marketing

3-Brand Promotion

4-Electoral battle, i.e. influencing the voters

5-Introduction of new products to the existing market

6-Introduction of existing products to the new market

7-Film Promotion

8-Event promotion

9-Personalized Music Applications

10-Personalized News feed

11-Information Websites

12-Sharemarket

13-Investment firms

 

Basically, filter bubble is a phenomenon by virtue of which a user will be isolated from his dislikes and only his likes and positive content will be served to him to influence the user to make decision in the favour of the creator of filter bubble.

The best answer to this question is provided by Senthilkumar G and Ajay Sharma.