Tool to Retrieve Less-Filtered Information from the Internet
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Motivation
1.2. Potential Vulnerabilities on Social Networks and Search Platforms: Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles
1.3. Goal of the Study
2. Related Works
2.1. Overview
2.2. Escaping the Filter Bubble
2.3. Countermeasures to the Filter Bubble on Search Platforms
- reading from other sources to compare whether the information is true;
- clicking on things that are unrelated to what people like and what people usually click on or accessing some information that people might not agree on;
- resetting usernames and starting afresh; and
- reducing the use of social media and not depending on it.
- publicizing information about the filter bubble, the hidden algorithms, and the effect that these have on our online lives;
- providing the possibility of unfiltered searching, allowing the public to get unbiased information based on relevance and content quality; and
- switching to another search engine or service such as duckduckgo.com.
2.4. Metasearch Engine Mechanism
3. Approach
3.1. Overview
- less-biased search result retrieval with a pluralization of search algorithms,
- a limited number of presented search results,
- searches without search/access history,
- search results that do not track the user’s personal location or IP address, and
- a mobile-friendly interface useful for general users.
3.2. Utilizing Metasearch Engine Mechanism
3.3. Classification and Selection Processes
- Only textual data are used as result items;
- Pages are classified into “Encyclopedias” (Wikipedia), “Famous News Agencies” (CNN (Cable News Network), BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), RT (Russia Today), Al Jazeera, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), DW (Deutsche Welle), etc.), “Online Newspapers” (The Guardian, The New York Times, Financial Times, etc.) and “Portals and Blogs” by matching the URLs against the list of news agencies and newspapers, which were prepared in advance;
- The maximum number of returned result items to the user is no more than seven, including at least one encyclopedia and two of each other category;
- The application preserves the ranks of result items from the search engine outcomes. If two or more result items have the same rank assigned by search engines, then they are ordered randomly;
- If there are more than two result items from the same source of search engine output, the two with the highest and lowest ranks are selected;
- No more than two representatives from each category are on the final list for the user. One result item has the highest rank, and the other has the lowest. This allows us to increase the chance for result items with different views to be presented to the end user.
4. Implementation
4.1. Overview
4.2. Compiling Search Results
4.2.1. Method with APIs: Retrieval from Google and Yandex
4.2.2. Retrieval Using Scraping: Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo
4.2.3. Process to Summarize Retrieved Results
4.3. Classification of Retrieved Pages
Listing 1. Pseudo-code of the classification process. |
|
4.3.1. Creating the Set of URL Domains
- Remove the domain from the set if the organization or their website is no longer available;
- Renew the domain if it is no longer available but the same media is available in another domain; and
- Add additional domains if the particular media has a page written in another language.
4.3.2. Maintenance of the Set of URLs
4.4. Selection of Search Results
Listing 2. Pseudo-code of the selection process. |
|
4.5. Presentation of the Selected Results
4.6. Implementation and Deployment of the Application in Practice
5. Evaluation and Analysis
5.1. Method
5.1.1. Overview
5.1.2. Content of the Evaluation Task
5.1.3. Queries for the Evaluation
5.1.4. Set of Questions
5.1.5. Evaluation Period
5.2. Result and Analysis
5.2.1. Evaluators’ Backgrounds
5.2.2. Collected Answers
6. Discussion
6.1. Advantages and Disadvantages of MosaicSearch
6.2. Possible Improvements as a Future Work
7. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
API | Application Programming Interface |
CSS | Cascading Style Sheets |
URL | Uniform Resource Locator |
JSON | JavaScript Object Notation |
XML | Extensible Markup Language |
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Search Engine | Market Share on Statscounter | Market Share on NetMarketShare | Owner Company | Country of Origin | API Availability | Scraping Difficulty |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
86.86% | 69.80% | Google LLC | US | Available | Difficult | |
Bing | 6.43% | 13.31% | Microsoft Corporation | US | Available | Difficult |
Yahoo! | 2.84% | 2.11% | Yahoo! Inc. | US | Unavailable | Easy |
Baidu | 0.68% | 12.53% | Baidu, Inc. | China | Unavailable | Difficult |
Duck-DuckGo | 0.65% | 0.43% | Duck Duck Go, Inc. | US | Unavailable | Easy |
Yandex | 0.62 (+0.63)% | 1.19% | Yandex LLC | Russia | Available | Difficult |
Others | 1.28% | 0.63% | - | - | - | - |
Category | Query |
---|---|
Science | 5G in Japan |
Science | COVID-19 Vaccine |
History | Conflict in Cyprus in 1967 |
History | How big were reparation payments by Germany after the First World War? |
Politics | Debate 2020 in USA |
Politics | Yellow vests in France |
Economy | World economy shrinking in 2020 |
Economy | Unemployment rate in the world in 2020 |
Queries | Questions | Options | |
---|---|---|---|
Num. | Question Content | ||
5G in Japan | 1 | Does 5G operate in Japan? | Yes/No |
2 | Coverage areas (multiple choice) | Tokyo/Osaka/Nagoya/Sapporo/Big Cities | |
3 | Date of the coverage of the whole Japan | Specified/Not specified | |
4 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
5 | Free way impression (write freely about the quality of the search results) | ||
COVID-19 Vaccine | 1 | Countries developing this vaccine | Specified/Not specified |
2 | Countries registered developed vaccines | Specified/Not specified | |
3 | The possible side effects | Specified/Not specified | |
4 | Expected date of the vaccine availability in Japan | Specified/Not specified | |
5 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
6 | Free way impression (write freely about the quality of the search results) | ||
Conflict in Cyprus in 1967 | 1 | Reasons for the conflict: explanation from both sides are provided | Yes/No |
2 | Casualties during the conflict | Specified/Not specified | |
3 | Duration of the conflict | Specified/Not specified | |
4 | Results of the conflict | Specified/Not specified | |
5 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
6 | Free way impression (write freely\about the quality of the search results) | ||
How big were reparation payments by Germany after the First World War? | 1 | Absolute numbers | Specified/Not specified |
2 | Percentage to entire global GDP | Specified/Not specified | |
3 | Duration in years for payment | Specified/Not specified | |
4 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
5 | Free way impression (write freely about the quality of the search results) |
Queries | Questions | Options | |
---|---|---|---|
Num. | Question Content | ||
Debate 2020 in USA | 1 | The number of debates between candidates | Specified/Not specified |
2 | Winners in the debates | Specified/Not specified | |
3 | Specifics compared to the previous election campaign in 2016 | Specified/Not specified | |
4 | Publication expressing the sympathy to only one candidate | Exists/Not exists | |
5 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
6 | Free way impression (write freely about the quality of the search results) | ||
Yellow vests in France | 1 | The history of this political movement | Specified/Not specified |
2 | The latest actions are described? | Yes, it’s described. /No, it’s not described. | |
3 | Response of the French government | Specified/Not specified | |
4 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
5 | Free way impression (write freely about the quality of the search results) | ||
World economy shrinking in 2020 | 1 | Cause of the shrinking is explained? | Yes/No |
2 | Countries with the worse situations are named? | Yes/No | |
3 | Anti-crisis measures are described | Yes/No | |
4 | Recovery duration | Specified/Not specified | |
5 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
6 | Free way impression (write freely about the quality of the search results) | ||
Unemployment rate in the world in 2020 | 1 | Unemployment rate in different countries, such as United States, China, or Turkey | Specified/Not specified |
2 | Reasons to increase unemployment | Specified/Not specified | |
3 | Actions to improve the situation | Specified/Not specified | |
4 | Are you as the user satisfied with the obtained results of the search? | Yes/No | |
5 | Free way impression (write freely about the quality of the search results) |
Category | Query | Number of Submissions |
---|---|---|
Science | 5G in Japan | 4 |
Science | COVID-19 Vaccine | 4 |
History | Conflict in Cyprus in 1967 | 4 |
History | How big were reparation payments by Germany after the First World War? | 3 |
Politics | Debate 2020 in USA | 5 |
Politics | Yellow vests in France | 4 |
Economy | World economy shrinking in 2020 | 5 |
Economy | Unemployment rate in the world in 2020 | 5 |
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Nemoto, Y.; Klyuev, V. Tool to Retrieve Less-Filtered Information from the Internet. Information 2021, 12, 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/info12020065
Nemoto Y, Klyuev V. Tool to Retrieve Less-Filtered Information from the Internet. Information. 2021; 12(2):65. https://doi.org/10.3390/info12020065
Chicago/Turabian StyleNemoto, Yuta, and Vitaly Klyuev. 2021. "Tool to Retrieve Less-Filtered Information from the Internet" Information 12, no. 2: 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/info12020065