Millions of people use YouTube every day and around 70% of the posts that are viewed are suggested by the selection algorithm. This tool is therefore enormously effective and has a significant influence on our choice of information. With TheirTube, designer and developer Tomo Kihara has created a tool that allows us to leave our own filter bubble in a playful way.
It is nothing new that platforms such as Facebook or YouTube are feeding you more and more of the same, but YouTube makes it clear just how powerful the selection algorithms behind them are: 70% of all videos that are watched have previously been suggested by the algorithm. On the one hand, this is very practical because you can discover a lot of content that suits your taste, but this is also where the problem lies. For example, if you think coronavirus is an invention or climate change is complete nonsense, you will be shown more and more content that confirms this world view.
The notorious bubble in which we move mentally is therefore becoming more and more entrenched. This is precisely where Tomo Kihara's project comes in. Under the name TheirTube, the Amsterdam-based creative developer has created a website that allows visitors to leave their own bubble and slip into the skin of another user.
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On TheirTube, you can immerse yourself in the world of one of six personalities to choose from: a conspiracy theorist, a climate change denier, a conservative, a liberal, a prepper and a frutarian. Kihara derived these exemplary personalities from interviews he conducted with people who share these interests and ways of thinking. Using TheirTube profiles, Kihara followed the same channels that the interview candidates follow and watched the corresponding videos, enabling him to generate a similar history of views and thus suggestions from the algorithm. The recommendations selected by YouTube can now be found on TheirTube every day.
Tomo Kihara uses the saying "Water is what fish perceive last" to describe our own perception when we are on the Internet. Our immediate surroundings seem so natural to us that we don't even realize how much they are controlled from the outside and, above all, how different they can be from the "reality" of other people.
With TheirTube, Kihara is now enabling us all to look beyond the horizon and see things and connections that we would never see through our own IP addresses and accounts. Tomo Kihara has already received the Mozilla Creative Media Award for his project.
