Menu Close

Articles on Filter bubble

Displaying 1 - 20 of 30 articles

These psychological tendencies explain why an onslaught of facts won’t necessarily change anyone’s mind. Francesco Carta fotografo/Moment via Getty Images

Your brain’s built-in biases insulate your beliefs from contradictory facts

Cognitive shortcuts help you efficiently move through a complicated world. But they come with an unwelcome side effect: Facts aren’t necessarily enough to change your mind.
President Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla. had thousands of empty seats, thanks at least in part to the actions of teenagers who mobilized on the social media platform TikTok. AP Photo/Evan Vucci

TikTok teens and the Trump campaign: How social media amplifies political activism and threatens election integrity

If teenagers organizing on social media can hamper a presidential campaign rally, how challenging is it to manipulate elections?
Pro-tolerance march in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2015. Phil Roeder/Flickr

The predicament of diversity: re-boot for diversity 3.0

Diversity is an enormously appealing and powerful concept, yet it can also distract us from the focus we need to face today’s pressing social issues. So what’s the way forward?
People who share potential misinformation on Twitter (in purple) rarely get to see corrections or fact-checking (in orange). Shao et al.

Misinformation and biases infect social media, both intentionally and accidentally

Information on social media can be misleading because of biases in three places – the brain, society and algorithms. Scholars are developing ways to identify and display the effects of these biases.
Information warfare in cyberspace could replace reason and reality with rage and fantasy. Shutterstock

How information warfare in cyberspace threatens our freedom

Simulation models show just how effectively fake news and propaganda can shift opinions.
What these people are seeing isn’t real – but they might think it is. AP Photo/Francisco Seco

Think Facebook can manipulate you? Look out for virtual reality

As the internet-connected world reels from revelations about personalized manipulation based on Facebook data, a scholar of virtual reality warns there’s an even bigger crisis of trust on the horizon.
There are widespread fears that so-called echo chambers and filter bubbles are leading to political polarization that poses a danger to democracy. But are the fears unfounded? (Melvin Sokolsky/1963 via Creative Commons)

The myth of the echo chamber

Despite fears that so-called echo chambers are causing political polarization, a new study suggests it’s not the case.
Message from the Unseen World, an installation of a Turing-inspired algorithm reciting a poem. by Nick Drake. Roger Marks/Flickr

Digital public: looking at what algorithms actually do

Today’s communications platforms and the algorithms that power them have led to a radical change in how public discourse is conducted and public opinion formed.
Some of the Facebook and Instagram ads used in 2016 election released by members of the U.S. House Intelligence committee. AP Photo/Jon Elswick

Why social media may not be so good for democracy

A scholar asks whether democracy itself is at risk in a world where social media is creating deeply polarized groups of individuals who tend to believe everything they hear.
Tired of seeing the same thing on Twitter? Shutterstock

Australian Twitter is more diverse than you think

Twitter is made up of numerous communities clustered around all manner of topics. If all you see is the same, it’s time to break out of your filter bubble.
Divided we fall. AAP/Reuters/The Conversation

Help us restore trust in experts

We’re keen to collaborate with more Australian media organisations to help restore some of the trust we’ve all lost.

Top contributors

More