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Measuring the "Filter Bubble": How Google is influencing what you click
Over the years, there has been considerable discussion of Google's "filter bubble" problem. Put simply, it's the manipulation of your search results based on your personal data. In practice this means links are moved up or down or added to your Google search results, necessitating the filtering of other search results altogether. These editorialized results are informed by the personal information Google has on you (like your search, browsing, and purchase history), and puts you in a bubble based on what Google's algorithms think you're most likely to click on.
The filter bubble is particularly pernicious when searching for political topics. That's because undecided and inquisitive voters turn to search engines to conduct basic research on candidates and issues in the critical time when they are forming their opinions on them. If they’re getting information that is swayed to one side because of their personal filter bubbles, then this can have a significant effect on political outcomes in aggregate.
This is a moderately long read, as web pages go. IMO, it's well worth the time.
The code that we wrote to analyze the data is open source and available on our GitHub repository.
https://github.com/duckduckgo/filter-bubble-study
duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_participants.xls contains the instructions we sent to each participant, as well as basic anonymized data for each participant.
https://duckduckgo.com/download/duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_participants.xls
duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_raw-search-results.xls contains a separate sheet for search results per query and per mode (private and non-private). The results are listed as they appeared on the screen for each participant, showing both organic domains and infoboxes such as Top Stories (news), Videos, etc.
https://duckduckgo.com/download/duckduckgo-filter-bubble-study-2018_raw-search-results.xls
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 15 2018, @01:59PM
I'm not talking about link bombs or keyword, query, search term, supersonic telephone pole stuffing.
Rather in my long experience, the very finest SEO is _compelling_ writing about whatever one knows the most about and is the most interest in. For me, that being cruel to the downtrodden by posting links to fake jobs.
At first my problem was viewing local search listings in other countries: if I did a search for "human rights criminal" at google.co.uk, I'd be redirected to google.com then fed the US results. Someone at WebmasterWorld pointed out google.co.uk/ncr - "No Country Redirect".
But that doesn't work anymore, and hasn't in _years_. It used to work with Tor Browser, but no longer for me as Google managed to SuperCookie my Tor by correlating my favorite YouTube videos in Tor with this from my logged-in Google accounts.
Please to clue me in as to how to spoof User Agents in Tor, as I'm _far_ too lazy and irresponsible to look it up myself.
I expect it would also help for my User Agent to include a variety of Tor Browser versions as well as MacOS System 7.* versions.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]