Facebook Bias Reflects Our Own

The Brian Lehrer Show | May 23, 2016

Newsflash: Facebook has an algorithm to determine what posts you see, including news and opinion posts. (But is that really surprising?)

Frank Bruni, New York Times Op-Ed columnist, talked about falling deeper into our own worldview on Facebook, where we rarely we encounter a point of view we don’t already have.

"We're in a very ironic era where we have more options and control over what we receive than every before," Bruni said, but instead of using these tools to broaden our world, "more and more people are bookmarking the blogs that reinforce their own point of view."

But Bruni said that just as we've created these echo-chambers, we can un-create them as well: "When you construct your twitter feed don't make it all Sanders supporters or Trump supporters. Find thoughtful sources from the other side and make them part of your feed as well. You can construct an information diet that is much more balanced."

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