Design, Science and Technology

JP Rangaswami highlights and defines seven key principles for effective filtering in this age of excessive information. 

Two of them are of particular important to the future of information access as they may have a very deep impact on society and on our ability to be in control of how to select and find what is relevant for us.

1. Filters, of whatever kind, should be user-driven and not publisher-driven. 

2. Filters should be interchangeable, exchangeable, even tradeable

"What we don’t know is how to solve a much bigger problem: what to do when there are filters at publisher level. Once you allow this, the first thing that happens is that an entry point is created for bad actors to impose some form of censorship.

In some cases it will be governments, sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly; at other times it will be traditional forces of the media; it may be generals of the army or captains of industry.

The nature of the bad actor is irrelevant; what matters is that a back door has been created, one that can be used to suppress reports about a particular event/location/topic/person."

Insightful. 7/10

Full article: http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2014/01/03/3740/ 

Reading time: 5'

(via Howard Rheingold)

See also: http://www.masternewmedia.org/future-of-search/ 

Filters are important when drinking from the Internet firehose!

More great insights from Robin Good.