The Economist’s article about the dangers of the internet goes into detail about the so called “filter bubble”, a unique universe of information for each single person, that we can experience everyday on Google, Amazon, Facebook and Co. Our location, interests, previous surf behaviors etc. are taking into account from these sites and we are presented with a personalized result. That sounds good, but is this all we want to have?

Eli Pariser and other critics think this is dangerous and believe that this approach prevents us from seeing and using the full potential of the Internet, not being presented with information that doesn’t fit into our own universe of opinions and interests. Eli Pariser calls this “invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own ideas”. In his book “The filter bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you” he goes into detail how such a filtered Internet can be dangerous and how sites can give users more control over their personal data.