NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Search Personalization: Blessing and Trap?
Search Personalization: Blessing and Trap?
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000757.html
Greetings. Arguably the holy grail of search technology -- and of
many other aspects of Internet-based services today, is
personalization. Providing users with personalized search
suggestions, search results, news items, or other personalized
services as quickly as possible, while filtering out "undesired"
information, is a key focus not only of Google but of other
enterprises around the world.
But does too much reliance on personalization create an "echo chamber"
effect, where individuals are mainly (or perhaps totally) exposed to
information that only fits their predetermined views? And if so, is
this necessarily always beneficial to those individuals? What about
for society at large?
Diversity of opinions and information is extremely important,
especially today in our globally interconnected environment. When I
do interviews on mainstream radio programs about Internet issues, it's
usually on programs where the overall focus is much more conservative
than my own personal attitudes. Yet I've found that even though
there's often a discordance between the preexisting views of most
listeners and my own sentiments, I typically get more insightful
questions during those shows than in the venues where I spend most of
my time online.
And one of the most frequent questions I get afterwards from listeners
contacting me by email is: "How come nobody explained this to me that
way before?"
The answer usually is that personalized and other limited focus
information sources (including some television news networks) never
exposed those persons to other viewpoints that might have helped them
fully understand the issues of interest.
An important aspect of search technology research should include
additional concentration on finding ways to avoid potential negative
impacts from personalized information sources -- particularly when
these have the collateral effect of "shutting out" viewpoints,
concepts, and results that would be of benefit both to individuals and
to society.
Overall, I believe that this is somewhat less of a concern with
"direct" general topic searches per se, at least when viewed as
distinct from search suggestions. But as suggestions and results
become increasingly commingled, this aspect also becomes increasingly
complex. (I've previously noted my initial concerns in this respect
related to the newly deployed Google Instant system:
http://bit.ly/abTTjo [Lauren's Blog]).
Suggestions would seem to be an area where "personalization funneling"
(I may be coining a phrase with this one) would be of more concern.
And in the world of news searches as opposed to general searches,
there are particularly salient related issues to consider (thought
experiment: if you get all of your information from FOX News, what
important facts and contexts are you probably missing?)
While there are certainly many people who (for professional or
personal reasons) make a point to find and cultivate varied and
opposing opinions, not doing so becomes much easier -- and seemingly
more "natural" -- in the Internet environment. At least the
possibility of serendipitous exposure to conflicting points of view
was always present when reading a general audience newspaper or
magazine, for example. But you can configure many Web sites and feeds
to eliminate all but the narrowest of opinions, and some
personalization tools are specifically designed to enhance this
effect.
As our search and related tools increasingly focus on predicting what
we want to see and avoiding showing us anything else (which naturally
enough makes sense if you want to encourage return visits and show the
most "attractive" ads to any given individual), the funneling effect
of crowding out other materials of potential value appears to be ever
more pronounced.
Add to that the "preaching to the choir" effect in many Internet
discussions. True, there are forums with vibrant exchanges of views
and conflicting opinions. But note how much of our Twitter and Buzz
feeds are depressingly dominated by a chorus of "Attaboy!" yells from
"birds of a feather" like-minded participants.
I am increasingly concerned that technologically-based Internet
personalization -- despite its many extremely positive attributes --
also carries with it the potential for significant risks that are
apparently not currently receiving the research and policy attention
that they deserve.
If we do choose to assign some serious thinking to this dilemma, we
certainly have the technological means to adjust our race toward
personalization in ways that would help to balance out the equation.
This definitely does not mean giving up the benefits of
personalization. However, we can choose to devote some of the
brainpower currently focused on figuring out what we want to see, and
work also toward algorithms that can help determine what we
*need* to see.
In the process, this may significantly encourage society's broader
goals of cooperation and consensus, which of necessity require -- to
some extent at least -- that we don't live our entire lives in
confining information silos, ironically even while we're surrounded by
the Internet's vast buffet of every possible point of view.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility): http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad (Network Neutrality Squad): http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP (Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance):
http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://bit.ly/lauren-buzz