The content we see is controlled. The distribution of information in this era is really painful, as companies stop at nothing to seek money and engagement. In a perfect world, content should be distributed in a manner that is beneficial to as many people as possible… But that is a topic for another day.
Google and Facebook, among with many others, are known for controlling all the content that you see. This made them much criticized.
You see, they make your content very personalized to seek engagement from you. To collect more information.
Personalized things just drive more engagement. But, do we really want to show everyone what they are interested in, or show everyone the objective things?
Maybe, we just need a mixture of them. Some personalized content for you to see, and some non personalized content.
In a broadcast society, information needs to be free, and controlling what content we see is not good. Transparency then, is the key.
https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles + Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles” | TED Talk + As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.