Eli Pariser Quotes

I think there is a danger when it comes to fake news because there is some fake news out there, but there's also a danger when you only hear back to you the beliefs you already have.

The Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see.

With the Internet there is even more fractioning since we are in echo chambers. With so much propaganda it is hard to calm down enough to listen.

Personalization is everywhere. We are constantly asked, directly or indirectly, to create Our Own Whatever - containing and limited to our 'favorite sources of information.' Republicans do that; Democrats do it; environmentalists do it; terrorists do it; science fiction enthusiasts do it. That's a real problem, I think.

The second the news comes on TV, people turn it off or tune it out. People don't want to hear the other side.

I don't really believe that people read just the stuff they agree with.

One of the marks of an educated man today is to know what not to read--what not to see or what not to listen to.

I worry that as the problem-solving power of our technologies increases, our ability to distinguish between important and trivial or even non-existent problems diminishes.

We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read.

All Americans can now relax in homogeneous spaces where they hear plenty of speech but nothing that might confound them. Whatever objectionable ideas or information they do encounter will arrive safely filtered through the congenial viewpoint of their chosen cable-news channel, social-media group, newspaper or Substack writer. They can duck the work of hearing alien arguments and sharpening their own ideas or even adjusting them—the kind of work that turns diversity in a pluralistic democracy into a source of resilience rather than a fatally fissiparous weakness.

Barack Obama hasn't kept us safe. The problem is we had an attack in San Bernardino. And we were paying attention to the most important issue we have faced in a decade since 9/11, and then all the talk was about this proposal, which isn't going to happen.

This is an awesome time to be a knowledge seeker, no better time, but it's also the best time in history to be a complete idiot.

The great thing about media now is that you have 360 degrees worth of opinions and can find whatever you want and tune out whatever you want.

In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.

People do not read stupidities with impunity.

When everybody has access to an avalanche of information, becoming a master thinker is very important in your life-long security.

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

Always, the eye sees more than the mind can comprehend, and we go through life self-blinded to much that lies before us. We want a simple world, but we live in a magnificently complex one, and rather than open ourselves to it, we perceive the world through filters that make it less daunting.

I think actually that the speech work I do is fine. It's important, because I try to help people think about what's going on and organize their lives accordingly.

The internet tends to make smart people smarter and dumb people dumber.

If there is no contradictory impression, there is nothing to awaken reflection

The most important thing is to have a more open and honest dialogue about gender issues.

I always think there are people looking not so much for information as for reassurance and reaffirmation of their views.

My suspicion is that those who seem oblivious to suffering, whether it is nearby or in remote corners, are for the most part unaware, perhaps blinded by doctrine and ideology. For them, the answer is to develop a critical attitude toward articles of faith, secular or religious; to encourage their capacity to question, to explore, to view the world from the standpoint of others. And direct exposure is never very far away, wherever we live - perhaps the homeless person huddling in the cold or asking for a few pennies for food, or all too many more.