Meaning
A situation, especially online, in which a person only encounters information and opinions that match their existing views, because personalization algorithms tailor what they see. The term is usually critical, implying that the person is unaware of how narrow their information diet has become. Neutral-to-critical register, common in journalism, education and commentary about technology; usually implies a problem to be fixed. Regional use: General English; strongest in online and media-discussion contexts.
Origin
The term was coined around 2010 by internet activist Eli Pariser and popularised through his May 2011 TED talk 'Beware online filter bubbles' and his 2011 book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. Pariser used an experiment in which friends googled 'Egypt' and received very different results to argue that algorithmic personalisation causes intellectual isolation. Media debate followed in 2011 in outlets such as The Economist, The Atlantic, Slate and the Wall Street Journal. Interest surged after the 2016 US election and Brexit, when commentators linked filter bubbles to misinformation; in 2016 the German translation 'filterblase' was voted Swiss word of the year, and in 2017 Barack Obama warned against retreating 'into our own bubbles'. Several later academic studies found the actual effect of personalisation is smaller than the metaphor implies, and this is documented in the Wikipedia article on the topic.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- filter bubbles
- the filter bubble
Usage Examples
- Once the algorithm learned she preferred gardening videos, her feed became a filter bubble with barely any other content.
- The professor warned students that search personalisation can trap them in a filter bubble of confirming sources.
- He blames his filter bubble for the fact that the election result came as a total surprise.