What it means:So, you're plugged in to the web community, sharing common cyberspace with your Facebook friends and Twitter tweethearts, totally in the loop, and fully up to speed with what's happening in the real world. You're part of one big, happy online family, wired into the same exciting internet experience. Fail! Actually, you're living in a filter bubble, floating in a virtual reality that's relevant only to you. Many websites, such as Google and Facebook, use algorithms to tailor information just for you, based on your profiles, preferences, browsing history and online shopping habits. The result is that when two people enter the same search term into their computers, they get completely different results. So one might enter "Burma" and get tigers, while another might enter the same word and get human rights abuses and Aung San Suu Kyi.
Where it comes from:Internet activist Eli Pariser alerted the world to the insidious effects of online personalisation via his book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You. He believes social networking and search sites are locking users into information bubbles that prevent them from seeing the bigger picture. When people only get information that agrees with their viewpoint, argues Pariser, there is no intellectual discourse. There are ways you can get around the filter bubble, such as turning off cookies, erasing your browsing history, and changing your Facebook profile, but if you had to do that every day, you'd have no time to hang out in the chatcafe with your Facebook friends.
How to say it:"Hey man, I hate to burst your filter bubble, but Beyoncé's beybey is not actually the Messiah."
