Yes, these are real risks. Thus far, Eli Pariser, just like any of us, is capable of noticing that one of his friends with different points of view never appears in his Facebook feed, because the relevance algorithm maintains that that person’s posts are not of interest to us and doesn’t show them. But it’s already fairly difficult for us to notice

On the one hand, social networks are clearly the successors of television in this respect: they also use billions of man-hours of time, energy and intellect. On the other hand, the Internet converts the entire, vast volume of man-hours previously spent on television from a passive state into an active one.

Paid content presumes the most valuable things should be closed. The web presumes the most valuable things should reach whomever they are of relevance to; that they should and will.

The sharing contest is what produces social gravitation in the web.

There are three bastions guarding our mental health – three echelons of filters that sift the contents of the Internet for us: 1) personal settings; 2) the Viral Editor; 3) algorithms of relevance.

For this system and this business to exist, an institutional social arrangement based on deficit is critically important. When there is no deficit, the old institutions, losing ground, even try to create one artificially. The creation in online media of an artificial pay-wall, if you think about it, is totally contrary to the spirit and social

Emancipation of authorship has this incidental effect: the audience itself becomes the author. The very same people – meaning people with identical, equal status – not only receive socially significant information, but produce it. Informational peer-sourcing has gone beyond the limits of the communal sphere and has reached the scope of public

An Internet presence is no longer an additional business opportunity – it’s a matter of existence. If you’re not on the Internet, you’re not in business. We’ll soon say the same about human beings. No links – no human.

Designers of both new media and relevance algorithms should take this factor into account. Media should involve individuals in society, not exclude them from it. Democrats and Republicans do not need different pictures of the world; they need different perspectives of one and the same picture. Points of view differ, but not the perceived objects