Facebook was looking at which links I clicked on, and it was noticing that I was clicking more on my liberal friends’ links than on my conservative friends’ links. And without consulting me about it, it had edited them out. They disappeared.

Source: "Beware Online 'Filter Bubbles.'" TED2011. Mar. 2011. Conference Presentation. Additional Information: This quote by online organizer Eli Pariser is from Pariser's 2011 TED Talk about online "filter bubbles." The quote means that Facebook's algorithms tracked which friends Pariser clicked on more often (his politically liberal friends) and then used that information to alter Pariser's News Feed so that his politically conservative friends' updates were not visible to Pariser. According to Pariser, this trend of filtering, or tailoring of online information to what online entities (such as Facebook and Google) deduce that the user wants to see, limits people's worldviews and is bad for democracy. Watch the full TED Talk here: Eli Pariser - Beware Online "Filter Bubbles"

“Beware Online ‘Filter Bubbles.'” TED2011. Mar. 2011. Conference Presentation.