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As I was watching the chaos in the US last night, the commentators were saying the same thing, that the people involved were only receiving information from one side. They also said that a lot of type of people involved were moving away from watching Fox 'News' as they thought they were going soft.When you search on Google, if you are doing it as 'you', you will be fed a set of links that is tailored to you. Try a Google search on another machine (not one of yours) and see how the results vary.
So someone like Robin will probably be fed links that suit a lifelong Tory, and is unlikely to find contrary views in search results. It's like buying the Telegraph, but not realising that it is very biased towards the right.
If this isn't resolved, it doesn't bode well for freedom of thought and critical thinking.
I can't see a way in giving people a balanced view of the world, if there is such a thing. The internet, because of things like Facebook and Google etc, and the methods of collecting data, they can be more precisely targeted for advertising aims, or political aims. Particularly with political extremes, at a certain point the individual will move away from mainstream sources of different information from any side because it is contrary to what they and their 'friends' believe, and once you are in a bubble listening to only what you want to hear, or believe, I can't see a way of convincing people with extreme views or beliefs, that there is an alternative if they have cut themselves off. If there is no dialogue and discussion, there is very little expectation of change.
The US in particular atm moment seems to have a very extreme divided nation, and I don't see how they bring opposing sides together when some no longer believe any facts that are put in front of them. It is not just the US though, I hear conspiracy theories about Covid that just make me think WTF! :banghead: Some people will actually have to get it, or have a family member catch it and possibly die to admit that it is real, and even then they may try to argue that they didn't actually die of Covid because the Government are somehow trying to cook the numbers. Which would actually be a detriment to the Government to have high numbers in every way, but that doesn't get in the way of a good conspiracy they have seen online, and all their 'friends' believe. Trump didn't like the number of infections going up, so tried not to test as much, because if you don't test the numbers don't go up do they! But has settled on ignoring it, and the results speak for themselves.
When I meet people who say they don't know anyone who has had it, I tell them I have a former employer who died from Covid, and they say what, he was in his 60's, he probably died from something else, I say no, he went into Hospital with Covid, got worse, and before he died put a picture of himself on Facebook in the ICU telling any deniers who didn't believe in it, that it was real, and that was what he had, and sadly later died from. You tell people that, that a person who died from it told people what he had before he died, and they just shrug their shoulders. It doesn't fit into their world view, so it is not real. If a dead person telling you what he was going to die from has no effect, then what hope is there changing the minds of people like that. And that is just one subject.
Btw, I know that the above is from my POV. I sadly know that I am out of step politically with a lot of the UK population. The last two elections have shown me how much I don't understand this country, and the motivations and beliefs of the majority of people living here. Que sera sera.