The Dictatorship of Free Choice: Identities among Algorithms - OpenMind

Our identities, whether we are aware of them or not, seem to be in a period of transition. Thus, we could say that we find ourselves between this intermediate step that the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has already referred to as "liquid currency", and what Eli Pariser described in his book The Filter Bubble. The "filter bubble" concept refers to how the Internet, and for that matter, how the algorithms behind it are in charge of deciding what you read, think, and even buy. The Internet seems to provide us with an identity; however, who provides an identity to the conglomerate of algorithms that make up the network of networks? To understand how algorithms work, it is useful to know what they are, and to view the Internet as something more than a completely harmless or totally evil tool.