This is probably much better than what currently happens, where search engines become personalized but users don't realize it. That anti-vax person might think they are searching the whole web when google has quietly flagged them as a user who enjoys anti-vax articles and continues suggesting those sites, taking them further down the rabbit hole.
...what the what.
Did you just casually declare that Google is feeding people search results tailored to their political worldview? Because if so, you need to actually come up with something to support that sort of claim.
Look up Google personalized search [2]. I guess only Google insiders know for sure what's the extent to which your search results get personalized, but it's common knowledge that this happens. It'd be also interesting to find out if they somehow try to reduce the personalization when it comes to 'political' interests. I'd wager that the answer is no.
And of course it's not just Google. Facebook and Twitter too. And probably every site with some kind of a feed trying to keep you engaged.
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Personalized_Search
1) Everything is political, and so are search results and suggestions
2) Personalized results/suggestions, moreover, tend to fit the perceived political views of the user (from the algorithm's perspective)
Google and Youtube (like many others) are well-known to have pushed neo-fascist and conspirationist propaganda to random bystanders (Alex Jones or Trump in the USA, Dieudonné or Soral in France) because their "controversial" viewpoints generate more user engagement. Likewise, Google search often promotes white/christian-supremacist "news" websites like FDeSouche in the top5 results for random queries.
Then, there's personalized recommendations. Once you've clicked one of these results, Google's algos will deem you interested in that kind of content, and suddenly it's impossible to avoid that bubble. It will keep recommending the same sites/channels everywhere you go, for months. That's why clicking "critically" on a link because you're curious what an "opposite side" has to say is a dangerous enterprise with recommendation algos: you'll be subtly yet persistently exposed to their propaganda ecosystem as a result.
I would personally welcome "Goggles" as a positive change. I often know precisely what i'm looking for (an article i saw a few years back), but stupid ranking algorithms make it impossible to find in the stream of information. There's not a one-size-fits-all algo that's going to please everyone: decentralizing this power is the only suitable way, in my humble opinion.
Right up until they ban them entirely.
We see this from the other side every year come Pride; companies put rainbow shit all over their sites while maintaining LGBTQ+ exclusive practices because they don't want to lose their bigoted customers.
I tend to look to nature for inspiration in thorny problems. For this one - essentially confirmation bias - genetic mutation seems an attractive metaphor. That is: there's always a bit of randomness thrown in. That could be dialled up/tuned to always include some contrarian answers.
I don't expect we'll all return to the great debating chambers of the past, but it'd be an interesting experiment at least: what would happen if every anti-vax search result included something on the benefits?
I'd much rather have 10 000 different communities who don't agree on anything, than have a strong hegemonic culture stepping on every disagreeing voice, as we currently have in most countries.
I think this paper is great in delivering a first solution to this space. Sure it's not perfect but atleast miles better than an opaque box.
Whether you believe in God(s), whether you trust the police, whether you're for community autonomy and collective ownership or wage slavery and private property, for jealousy or free love...
There's so many ways to live and for every individual, most of them will seem alien. When the "hole" is big enough and is crushing other holes with its cultural hegemony (eg. industrial capitalism) then it's harder to realize it's here in the first place, like in the movie Matrix ;)
- the source reputability criteria prevents much of popular knowledge/culture to be referenced (police abuse example: first-hand witnesses are not considered reliable sources unless quoted by a big newspaper)
- the topic reputability criteria prevents many interesting figures from being referenced (see previous HN discussions about why women scientists are mostly absent from Wikipedia)
Neutrality is a lie. Everything is subjective. We can try to provide broader interpretation and critique, but no single entity can cover every aspect and worldview. In my view, that's a feature and not a bug.
As other commenters have pointed out, you will be in a filter bubble no matter what, because you cannot speak to every person, read every paper, or understand every point of view. Bias cannot be eliminated, only understood and corrected for.
- abolition of slavery in the USA was not perceived by many (former-)slaves as social progress, but rather as legitimization of a new form of "wage slavery" where your master doesn't own you, but you owe them for food and housing... moreover, prison slavery is still a thing in most countries which do not recognize workers rights for incarcerated people (France, USA, etc)
- Hitler apologists point out that US army atrocities (during and after WWII) have been mostly erased from history books; on the other hand, Hitler's atrocities have been reduced to the eradication of Jews, whereas queers, handicapped folks and tsigans (among others who have also been eradicated) are barely mentioned if at all. Hitler is also "caricatured" as a genocidal freak, failing to represent his earlier figure which is a lot closer to many of our "presidents" across the globe than is comfortable to admit. After all, Hitler was presented by the media and industry (his biggest supports) as the candidate of reason and property against unions and marxists/anarchists and their rule of the mob
- Daech and other reactionary muslim militant groups insist on the atrocities of Western "democracies" to justify their own; these imperialist atrocities are never acknowledged by eg. France/USA who pretend they're on armed humanitarian missions against barbarism and patriarchy (an argument for colonization which dates back over a century!). This invisible spot in western worldview ("let's fix human rights with more bombs") leaves plenty of room for Daech to recruit young disillusioned folks who know their government is lying and killing innocent civilians abroad
Overall, i think any propaganda slips through your brain and leaves traces, just like any form of advertisement. So i can recommend as a general rule of thumb to never read neo-nazi/patriarchal/capitalist propaganda. However, when you're studying a precise topic, i believe getting points from all sides (not just two, as you pointed out) is an important practice that can help you develop a better understanding of the issue to overcome your own conditioning.
Especially in Global North republics who pretend to be democracies (but don't have any democratic features [0]), it can be hard and painful to acknowledge that our governments don't recognize or respect any of the fundamental rights they so eagerly accuse other nations of infringing on, that all political parties and corporations running the show are delusional maniacs, and that no "human rights" NGO will save us. Sure we all have human rights in theory, but practicing them would be considerably better!
[0] No, electing overlords every few years is not a democracy. Those electoral systems were precisely (historically) designed to prevent democracy which was seen as a danger to the 18th century elites.