Want companies to stop curating your social media, internet results? Ken Buck’s new bill is meant to help – The Denver Post

Want companies to stop curating your social media, internet results? Ken Buck’s new bill is meant to help – The Denver Post

Social media and other internet platforms rely on algorithms to curate what users see based on information the companies collect as people scroll through their feeds. U.S. Rep. Ken Buck has introduced in a bill in the U.S. House aimed at curbing that.

Buck, who represents Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, is sponsoring a bipartisan companion bill to one in the U.S. Senate, dubbed “The Filter Bubble Transparency Act,” that would require companies to alert users the companies use algorithms that rely on personal data. The bill would require companies to give users the option to see content without those algorithms, and to switch back and forth. A similar bill was introduced in 2019.

“I guess it’s a good business practice if you’re Facebook or Google, but what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to increase engagement on their platforms so that they can advertise to people. The challenge is that we end up with a more polarized citizenry and really a country that knows less about what other people think on an issue and therefore have …. less understanding, less patience maybe for other thoughts because all they’ve been fed are their own views over and over again,” Buck said in an interview Tuesday.

Some social media platforms such as Facebook, allow users to change their feeds and view them in chronological order, rather than just what’s targeted at them, but users have to select this option every time they want to see their recent posts.

Buck wants consumers to have the choice to view content not just chronologically at all times, but without what he refers to as manipulation.

“With Google, if you put in search results, and you don’t have an algorithm, you’re going to get back one set of results. If you do have an algorithm based on what you’ve opened in the past, you’re going to get back another set,” he said.

Want companies to stop curating your social media, internet results? Ken Buck’s new bill is meant to help

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