## Filtering and fake news

Now that so much of our mail comes in digitally, it is easy for mail to get lost or looked over. This is why being able to filter and manage your email is such an important skill, especially in this day and age. I ended up following the instructions on the HackMD page from Professor Reagle to create the filter for the NU News, and I followed those same steps to create a filter for canvas notifications as pictured below.

By doing this, I can find all my canvas notifications and NU news emails in one place.


This makes it a lot easier to not only find emails that I'm looking for in these folders, but it also clears up my normal inbox as these emails sometimes spam my inbox. The use of filtering in this case is used for something positive, something that saves me time and increases my productivity.

But there are methods that websites and social media use to use this method of filtering negatively. According to Eli Pariser, an executive of Upworthy activist, these are called "filter bubbles"

### Filter Bubbles

Filter bubbles refer to "the results of algorithms that dictate what we encounter online." These algorithms are used to capture our attention, and subsequently, this makes us much less productive when trying to complete tasks online. For example, sites will offer personalized content sections, based on a multitude of factors such as browsing history, age, gender, location, etc. This allows for social media sites to cater to content that the user would most likely enjoy, knowing that all these factors are factors that fall into this user's persona. This leads to the creation of echo chambers, which is a term to explain that one thinks that everyone thinks the same way that they do, and they forget that other perspectives exist. And worst of all is that there is no way to consent to filter bubbles, they kind of just happen as we are scrolling through the web.

### How to avoid filter bubbles

There are a few different methods that we can use to escape filter bubbles. One method is to use ad-block, which is beneficial for users anyway as they will avoid seeing those annoying advertisements that no one likes to see. Another method is to educate yourself by reading perspectives from everyone and not just one person. By looking at different sources, one can see viewpoints from a multitude of perspectives, and by doing that they can gauge a sense of what they believe based on all of those sources. Some other methods include browsing in incognito mode, deleting search histories, and deleting cookies.

Filters are not a bad thing at all, nor are most features on the web. Filters are extremely beneficial as shown in the example above about my email. It just depends on how we use these filters; we can use them to benefit ourselves, or they can be used to "harm" ourselves. The most important thing that we can do to avoid filters being used for wrong is to keep ourselves educated and know the necessary steps to avoid falling into these filter bubbles. By doing this, these filter bubbles won't be bubbling for much longer.