I rarely use Facebook these days, but I do use YouTube.
Checking in both platforms recently, I realised all videos or media recommended to me have one thing in common: they are all from the same ideology.
This is through no fault of the algorithm. After all, we are the ones who trained them.
With every click, we tell the algorithm what we enjoy watching, which articles we wouldn’t spend another second reading, or which friends’ political leaning jokes we agree with. We are the biases because we all have opinions.
This is by no means a new phenomenon. That is how we form clicks and friendship groups in the real world — Birds of a feather flock together. But the internet has amplified this and we are increasingly becoming ignorant of the existence of the opposing voices. We are roiled by preconceptions and biases, and we usually do what feels easiest — we gorge on information that confirms our ideas, and we shun what does not.
Confirmation bias is here to stay, but as long as we are aware of it, we can remind ourselves to check-in with reality and acknowledge the belief differences.