The Paradox of the Internet #2

  Hello again! My name is Ian Fay and I am a freshman attending Science Leadership Academy. You may remember me from my last blog I posted over two months ago in December. I was writing about the invasion of internet privacy and how net neutrality is being repeatedly tarnished. I described it as a very paradoxical issue and also being a very hard issue to solve. Since then, I have looked a bit deeper into this issue and created my own research as well. Now, I am here to share it with you so let us get right into it.

    I had a technology class earlier in my first semester of school. My teacher, Ms. Hull, showed my class a Ted Talks video with Eli Pariser. Pariser talked about a concept called “ The Filter Bubble”. A filter bubble is a term he used to describe the predicament he was talking about in the video. When you consistently search items that fall into a certain category, the website you used  would assume that you “like” things that are similar. As a result, it filters out all of the things that do not fall into that certain category. I found this to be very ludicrous. This is effectively restraining us from seeing any pieces of information other than what we “like”.   

    In addition to finding out about this new research, I conducted some of my own. Recently Ms. Dunn may have been blowing up red and orange streams inboxes with messages about surveys as well as some students sending their surveys out themselves. I had mine sent out by Ms. Dunn. Obviously it was the one on internet privacy and security. I wanted to have the question centered around online security and legislature and how people think it can be improved upon itself. If you want to see the results then you can check them out using the link here. I noticed how many people do not see companies as trustworthy with their personal information.

    Now the next step for me to become an Agent of Change. This is where I try to make a difference in this issue. However I feel that I may have it a bit harder than others. With the issue involving all of this neverending confusion, I found it hard to try and find a way to help this problem in the world. Then I decided I would do a presentation for my advisory. I do not know if there are any people trying to help stop this issue, but I feel as of right now the best thing I can do is to raise awareness of this problem.

    This is where my blog #2 ends. Thank you everyone for reading and be sure to comment below. In the next blog, I will talk about how I did as an Agent of Change. I will also talk about the efforts that are being done for this problem right now. I am eager to see you then. This was Ian Fay who will soon become an Agent of Change!

Bibliography

Eli Pariser “Filter Bubble”