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.

The media’s attempts to sell content on the Internet using subscriptions have no future. It is possible to continue, but too late to begin.

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

Paid content has no future not because people don’t want to pay or because there are no effective micropayment services. The reason is far deeper and more hopeless: the idea of paid content, at its very essence, contradicts the logic of network interaction.

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

On the other hand, relevance algorithms create that very same Filter Bubble, the impervious cocoon that locks our future outlooks within the prison of our past preferences. If a robot judges exclusively by what we have liked previously, we will lose the chance for serendipity, accidental meetings with unexpected information that may expand our

As a result, journalism is deprived of its monopoly over analysis and opinion. Thousands of journalists lose out to millions of bloggers not only in terms of reach, but also in terms of competence, style and wit.

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.

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