"Breaking the Filter Bubble: Tech Tips for a Diverse Perspective"

Tech Unflitered
Fawn: [00:00:00] Welcome back, everybody. Last week, we were talking about filters and how we really need to be friends with basically our opposites and why and We were talking about how everything is filtered for us Or to us should I say but either way we thought that We would dedicate today's show to tech Oh dear, 
MATT: scary space.
Fawn: And have Matt show us how we can, much like becoming friends with your opposites, using tech to see things that normally wouldn't come across your feed. So, being aware of things in the world, experiences in life. That normally don't come across your feed because, how do I explain, am I explaining this Matt?
You're explaining it 
MATT: and I can, I can start citing examples that are all going to feel very very dated because I've been doing this for quite some time. 
Fawn: Well, however way you do it, please can you teach us how we can become more, more [00:01:00] multi dimensional? How do I even say it Matt? 
MATT: It's, it's tricky. Can you explain 
Fawn: what we're trying to do?
I don't think I'm doing a good job. Am 
MATT: I? I don't know. It's tricky. How do you, how do you start? To get another point of view and it's like a muscle that we haven't been exercising because well the algorithm the Google the Facebook You know, 
Fawn: but explain what's going on. I mean for you just saying that well, you understand but like 
MATT: Please explain what that is exactly.
They constantly feed you more of what you've liked in the past. 
Fawn: What is it? 
MATT: Well, I said they constantly feed you more of what you've liked in the past. So, if you've liked stories about unicorns and rainbows, you're going to see more stories about unicorns and rainbows. If you're fascinated by the subject of school shootings, you're going to see every school shooting.
It's just how it works, because you've liked it in the past, because you've viewed it in the past. As long as they know who you [00:02:00] are, they're going to continue feeding you that. 
Fawn: And also, if you've purchased a certain something, anything related to that purchase also shows up. Isn't that right? 
MATT: That is true.
That is true. And God help you if you go shopping for Jeeps online, you're going to see a lot of Jeep ads. 
Fawn: And not even that. With smart TVs, so if you're seeing anything near your TV, doesn't it pick it up also? Uh, 
MATT: they proved that your phone is tracking you. 
Fawn: And your TV too, no? 
MATT: Well, I don't know if they proved it, but it certainly feels that way to a lot of people, but it could be serendipitous because they're already tracking you in 27 other ways.
Fawn: So when we're having conversations in the car, The phone is listening. We don't have to say, Hey, Siri, or whatever it is, right? Right. It's, it's constantly 
MATT: just kind of listening. And if it knows who you are, and it's integrated across your entire reality, it's going to continue to feed that to you. So it 
Fawn: is listening.
MATT: But let's take a step back from [00:03:00] that, because that would require a ton of discipline. Let's talk about simple, simpler things you can do. 
Fawn: Alright, what can we do to become more aware? 
MATT: Well, I can talk about what I do. Oh, you poor things. So, first off, if you're on a Mac, you're using a Safari browser. If you're on Windows, odds are you're using either Chrome or Edge, and guess what?
Chrome and Edge are kind of the same thing at this point. So, Google is keeping track of what you do. They just are. 
Fawn: Like what? Things on the internet? Or would it also track whatever you're doing on your computer? No, 
MATT: it's not tracking what you're doing on your computer as far as I know. Microsoft wants to start doing that.
But then they said they were gonna do it and there was a big uproar. So now they said, no, we're, we're really not going to do it, but they may or may not be lying about it, right? Cause a company would never do that. But anyways, again, simple steps. Step one, go to firefox. com and [00:04:00] download a different browser called Firefox.
Why? Just because it's not Google and because it's not Apple, because Apple's tracking you too. Next thing you do is, when you're in your Firefox browser, you don't log in to anything. What do 
Fawn: you mean? What does that mean? 
MATT: So you don't log in to Facebook, you don't log in to LinkedIn, you don't make random purchases.
Can you log in to your bank account? You don't, you don't even, 
Fawn: How do you get into your bank account? 
MATT: Well, everybody stores their passwords in Google, in Chrome, so boom, right? Now those passwords are actually stored on your local machine. Let's not freak out about that. Google's not theoretically swallowing up your passwords.
Theoretically. But who knows? And that's part of the, that's part of the weirdness. But let's step away from that for a minute. Let's take off our tinfoil hats. Which comes from Philip K. Dick, by the way. But let's remove our tinfoil hats. And let's just talk about simple steps. So you download Firefox.
Now you could. [00:05:00] If you right click on your Chrome icon, or your Edge icon, or your, uh, Safari icon. This is for PC. This 
Fawn: is for 
MATT: PC. We're talking Macs too. If you right click, you can run something called incognito privacy in private modes, which don't keep track, they pinky swear it doesn't keep track of you.
But they've already kind of proven Google's kind of broken that promise. So they're still quote unquote tracking you. But you can do that and at least see the internet in a different way. Now you'll know if you're successful if you go to YouTube. And this is new. This has only been like the past month or two.
And there's no videos on YouTube. com. It's like, start searching and we'll give you something to watch. Think about that for a second. They used to give you a zeitgeist feed. I love the zeitgeist feed. They don't now. You actually have to start searching for something. 
Fawn: Can you explain what the [00:06:00] zeitgeist feed is?
So the 
MATT: zeitgeist feed is gonna be the things they think are most popular in a given moment. This is like how certain keywords like go up on Twitter slash X. So, this is what, YouTube believes, people it doesn't know anything about want to look at. But anyways, you'll know you've succeeded. However, as soon as, oh my goodness, as soon as you actually search for something on YouTube, or search for something on Google, or search for something anywhere, they're gonna start personalizing your results.
Holy cow, what do I do about that, right? Well, what you do is when you start Firefox, you start Firefox in private mode, in incognito mode. That takes you away from the Google ecosystem and Firefox has a vested interest in keeping you private. So that's a good place to start and without getting too technical, cause there are other things we can do to get us even more private, but let's just deal with that.
So just [00:07:00] browse privately in Firefox. Okay? Thanks for listening. Step number two, this is almost going to sound terrible and ironic and weird and a million other things, but the other thing I like to do, me personally, I go to news. google. co. uk. Now in America, what that means is, You're browsing to a British site.
And if I was in England, I would be browsing to news. google. com, which takes you to an American based site. Now I do this, I did this back in the day because the economy was not doing well and I did not want to hear about my local bank failing. But I was okay hearing about the Royal Bank of Scotland failing.
Fawn: But didn't you also do it because you didn't want to see the football scores? And also 
MATT: I don't want to see US football scores. Now this news. google [00:08:00] site is giving you news of the day. Now because it doesn't know who you are and what you're interested in, it's going to give you the Zeitgeist feed again.
So you're looking at news of the day and it's, it can be really, really fascinating to take a look at news of the day from England for me, because we live in America. So I get to hear all about the Tories and the labor party and a bunch of things that nobody in America understands Because nobody pays attention, but then also if you see a news blurb about something in America in your country of origin and that But whatever they're talking about, that's like uber zeitgeist because that has now spread outside of the borders of your country.
But you can go ahead and search for whatever you want in there as well. 
 That's literally the only Google site I go to when I go ahead and I search for random stuff. I go to a website called Duck, duck [00:09:00] Go. So it's almost like duck, duck goose, but it's duck.
Duckgo. com and again, D 
Fawn: U C K, 
MATT: D U C K, D U C K, D U go. com and you can set that up in your preferences and stuff inside of your browser. But again, don't want to get too technical, but be aware if you want to do that, you can do that. And they again have a vested interest , in your privacy. And so you're not going to see what are called curated results or results that you or your peer group normally clicks on.
They're going to try and give you a much more unfiltered look. And those are kind of the two biggest tips. However, Like for instance, everything's a, for instance, if I want to try and get a sense of a sensitive political issue in this current U. S. presidential campaign race. It's good to take a look at websites like, the Washington Post and the New York Post because one skews to the left, [00:10:00] one skews to the right.
So it's interesting to see what they're talking about. So it's really, it's forcing you to do your due diligence, to exercise your muscles, to emphasize your curious mind. and really take a look. So when I'm looking at things happening in the Middle East, we get an interestingly filtered view here in America.
And I always find it interesting, point, counterpoint, Al Jazeera walks a very challenging line. Al Jazeera is, I think, by and large owned by, um, much more Islamic, they want to push a much more Islamic, um, kind of, uh, agenda as opposed to a lot of the news we get in America I think is very biased towards Israel.
So they can offer a balance because they're trying real hard not to say terrible things. About, I'm sorry, unfounded [00:11:00] terrible things about Israel, but they want to say terrible things about Israel. So again, it's about getting a balance and really trying to look at both sides of whatever issue you're talking about or you're interested in.
And the other thing is be interested. Be interested in, in the things you're looking for. It's just because, you know, and it's cool getting spoon fed cool stuff. I'm totally, I'm totally with that. I totally get that. And that's fine. Turn your brain off. You know, you just turn on TV and you watch whatever's on.
Life is good. But when it comes time to actually research or be able to know stuff, you know, there, there's kind of, There's kind of two aspects of it. And number one is, you know, do your homework. The other thing, and I'm not sure if we can talk about that now, but the other thing is to, find alternative opinions [00:12:00] out in, the quote unquote real world that may involve, going to your local library, pulling down a newspaper, that may involve going out and meeting people
for goodness sake, who don't share your beliefs? It's an interesting thing I'm a techie. We don't spend a lot of time talking politics until we break through an awful lot. And even in those cases, oftentimes what we want, oftentimes, we're so busy working. We're so busy focused on
The problems that we're having in the given moment or, grousing about this coworker or celebrating this coworker or whatever it is that you don't get a chance to know these people you work with as people, but sometimes you do, but it's, I think it's important to foster and engender, a circle of people around you, who don't agree with you.
And maybe even fundamentally don't agree with you. And that's hard to do in today's society because typically [00:13:00] people of a certain socioeconomic level feel a certain way, politically. And so odds are, if you look at your neighbors, you're going to agree on a majority of things. So it requires you even to break away from that.
Fawn: Yeah, even your neighbors, chances are you're all making the same amount of money because you're living in that same area, than being able to afford where you're living. Right. So, just in your own neighborhood, even your own town, you will not find people that are so different from you. Right. 
MATT: That is true.
Fawn: Or you would have to cross the tracks, you know, go to the other side of town. let's do a part two on the show. Mm hmm. I really wanted to get your expertise. And yours. And well, I mean tech, I mean I, I work side by side with you and I'm like, oh my god. Everything's on Google, and I, oh, oh, I feel terrified.
My eyes were very, I could feel my eyes bulging out as you were [00:14:00] talking because, yeah, I do get spoon fed, and it's like, I tend to think, well, it doesn't really affect me because I'm busy, I'm working, and yeah, these things pop up, and I really like the things that pop up. Of course. But the thing is, because I'm so busy, busy, I'm using that, that, that four letter word But because there's so much asking for my attention, , I'm like, whatever, it's okay, you know, like I have things to do, but the amount of time I have, that if there's something important that I need to understand or that I need to find out about, I won't get it, because the space is taken up by the fluff, that is just being spoon fed to me, if I need to know, like, you know, Worst case scenario.
I know this wouldn't well. Yeah, maybe it would right? What if there's a tornado here somehow a few weeks ago I found out that there's a tornado Coming to our [00:15:00] town and I called the neighbors. No one knew I called the police department I'm like, is there like a a warning system? They're like, no, we don't have a warning system I'm like, well, did you hear about the tornado that's coming here?
They're like no You I'm like, whoa, they don't even know I had to call. I didn't even call a friend from another state called me at that moment. And she was like, let me figure out what's going on. What? For you know what I'm saying? Yes. Like wow. 
MATT: Yes. So 
Fawn: that's kind of an extreme That's not an even an extreme example But that is an example of like what's around you that you need to know that won't get to you Right, and it's what does this have to do with a friendly world?
Well, this is what's making us divided This is what is creating a depression a confusion. This is what's creating a loneliness epidemic We are [00:16:00] so Far apart and it's so simple because honestly the people who you think are your enemies are not if and even if let's say They are well, what's that term?
Keep your enemies close, 
MATT: right? Well, no thy enemy Sun Tzu way back when you know your enemy and yourself victory is assured 
Fawn: right? know your enemy But 
MATT: anyway, it's just a circle back if you could take nothing else away go to firefox. com download the browser Always run Firefox in incognito mode and then do your homework.
So I like news, not google. co. uk. but if you're like reading an article that's heavily slanted towards Israel, then you go to Al Jazeera. Because the times of Israel will always be slanted towards Israel. If you read something that's very, you know, if you come across an article that's very much skewed in America on to, to the right or to the left, you read the other side of the story.
So, Washington Post, New [00:17:00] York Post are good places to go to see both sides of a story. 
Fawn: Cool. Okay, well that's, that's a lot. It is. It's a lot for me, and I work with you, and I live with you, and I'm your partner. And it's exhausting. And every time we talk about this, I get really scared and overwhelmed, because I'm like, I'm doing everything wrong.
And literally, my desk is right next to yours. You're you're the techie guy in the family. You pretty much control all the tech like as far as something goes wrong. I'm like Matt But yeah, I'm I feel like I'm screwing everything up. Well, 
MATT: it just requires some discipline 
Fawn: Well, I mean like our bank accounts and everything and the passwords.
It's like 
MATT: those those. Okay, the passwords are stored On your local machine and Google pinky swears. They don't do anything. 
Fawn: Yeah, but Google also swore do no evil Remember they I do that was their slogan. Was it a slogan? Yes. That was their motto That was their mantra. 
MATT: That was their [00:18:00] mission statement.
Do no do no evil, but they don't understand what evil is 
Fawn: Okay, guys, we'll stop this episode here We'll talk to you next week. We talked about tech and how to go outside your realm, how to expand, getting out there in the world to experience new things Starting from the internet starting from your own home with your searches on your computer next time Let's talk about how can we go out and actually meet people who are different from us?
Because I mean even for me an outgoing person Even though I am totally an introvert, Wendy, Wendy doesn't think I'm an introvert. Um, I, um, but I, I do, I mean that's my whole mission in life, it always has been, to create family of friends, but even I, I'm even thinking, I don't know how to make friends anymore at this point in my life.
You go through dips and Right, of course. You go through highs and lows, right? I'm at my low right now. 
MATT: Right. 
Fawn: And I'm [00:19:00] like, I don't know, like, I haven't been hanging out with anyone really. One because I've been really, my, my career has changed, and I'm Right. It's a lot. It's taking all my focus pretty much.
So there you have that. Right. Not to make excuses, but I'm like, how would I make friends right now? And then on top of what which is like, how do I make friends with someone opposite from me? Whoa, I'm already tired. It requires a lot of effort Because it's something uncomfortable, right? 
MATT: Right and there and there you have 
Fawn: it.
It's already uncomfortable to go and make new friends But now how do you do it with a friend that is Opposite. My God. Okay. We'll talk about that later. Please be safe out there first of all. Have a beautiful everyday. 
MATT: Be well. 
Fawn: We'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.