Your girlfriend loves reruns of Sex and the City, high heels and champagne. You, on the other hand, like to pour over the Financial Times, drink espressos and debate the pros and cons of raising taxes in the US. You’re an odd couple but a happy one. You believe in the same values, and you understand the world in the same way. Or do you?

　　你的女友喜欢看《欲望都市》的重播、高跟鞋和香槟，而你喜欢看《金融时报》、喝意大利浓咖啡和讨论美国增加赋税的利弊，你们是奇怪但和谐的一对。你们有相同的价值观，对世界的看法一样，是这样吗?

　　If belief systems and consequently behavior are shaped by the information we have, then both you and your girlfriend are growing ever more distant. The reason is that everything your girlfriend “sees” is predicated on what she already likes: Amazon only recommends books to her on dating, marriage and orgasms; Facebook automatically filters her newsfeed so that she only sees updates from friends whose opinions on fashion shows she always comments on; even Google gives her different results for the exact same search that you conduct.

　　如果价值观和行为由我们的获取的信息来塑造，那么你和你的女友将渐行渐远。原因在于你女友所“看到”的东西可以从她的喜好推断出来：亚马逊只给她推荐关于约会、婚姻和性高潮的书;Facebook自动过滤她的订阅源，她只会看到她经常评论的朋友对时尚走秀的意见;甚至就算你们搜索同一样的东西，谷歌提供的结果也大相庭径。

　　Usually, couples become more similar over time since they influence each other’s thinking. But today, couples that are different will find their differences reinforced by a far more powerful medium: the Web. Every single major Web company observes your interests (for example, the books you buy on Amazon, the articles you read on the New York Times) and then provides you with a buffet of items catered to that interest. You are increasingly balkanized in your own preferences. Eli Pariser rightly believes this is a big problem and in fact contrary to good civic life.

　　通常，夫妇会随着时间增长变得更相似，因为他们影响着对方的思考方式，然而在今天，夫妻会发现他们的分歧会被一个更加强有力的媒介增强，即网络。每个网络公司都在观察你的喜好(比如，你在亚马逊上购买的书籍，你在纽约时报上读的文章)，根据你的喜好提供相应的信息。你的喜好愈加碎片化，埃利帕雷瑟(Eli Pariser)认为这是个大问题，而且对公民生活没有好处。

　　Pariser, founder of the phenomenally popular MoveOn.org which raised millions of dollars for progressive political candidate, is about to publish “The Filter Bubble” later this month. While it looks like an excellent book (we’ve already pre-ordered it), you can get a sneak peak about the content from his insightful TED talk ?What the Internet is Hiding From You - on the same topic. He warns that personalized newsfeeds “moves us very quickly toward a world in which the Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see.”

　　帕雷瑟是火爆的Moveon.org的创始人，这个机构为改革派政治候选人筹集了数百万美元。他准备在本月发表《过滤器泡沫》。这本书似乎很精彩(我们已经提前预定了)，你可以从他的富有洞见的TED同题演讲《互联网隐藏了什么》中窥见一斑。他提醒道，个性化的信息源“将我们投入一个世界中，互联网展示它认为我们想看的东西，而不一定是我们需要看的”。

　　Importantly, Pariser points out that these algorithms are based on our impulse clicks ? so when given a choice between viewing a quick slideshow of the Royal Wedding and reading about Obama’s energy policy, you’ll probably click the former. That doesn’t mean that you won't eventually be interested in US energy consumption. However, by only focusing on your initial clicks, the information fed to you gets increasingly skewed towards the instant gratification often vacuous information. And as Pariser warns, “instead of a balanced information diet, you can end up surrounded by information junk food.”

　　重要的是，帕雷瑟指出这种算法是基于我们冲动下的点击――如果让你选择看皇家婚礼的幻灯片或阅读奥巴马的能源策略，你很有可能会选前者。并不是说你最后对美国能源消耗不感兴趣。但是，网络只注重你最初的点击选择，发送给你的信息源逐渐扭曲，更多是即时满足的无意义信息，正如帕雷瑟所警告的：“你最终会被垃圾信息围绕，而不是合理的信息饮食。”

　　These algorithmic gatekeepers are essentially keeping us away from the difficult and uncomfortable truths that are necessary if one is going to be a responsible citizen. Also, they are preventing us from being innovative creative thinkers because we are constantly exposed to a narrower and narrower slice of the Web. Pariser urged the crowd, especially the heads of companies like Facebook and Google, to make sure that the algorithms were encoded with “new ideas and new people and different perspectives.” He got a standing ovation.

　　这些算法过滤掉成为一个有担当的公民所需要了解的艰难而令人不适的事实。同时，它们也妨碍我们成为有创新创造力的思想者，因为我们面对的是愈加狭窄的互联网的一角，帕雷瑟主张人们，尤其是像Facebook和Google这类公司的管理者，确保算法中能加上“新思想和新人群，以及不同的视角”，他的演讲得到听众起立鼓掌欢呼。