> "Am I the only one who thinks this "algorithmic targeting" thing is overblown."
> "Well, I actually know I'm not. I'm a bit more scared about TV. Sure, Facebook is one entity and it'd probably make sense to regulate it and/or break it up, but I'd assume TV is probably more of a homogenizing force."

I think there's a couple of different things going on here that should be considered independently:

(a) two-way communication between people (e.g., conversations)

(b) one-way broadcast information (traditional media)

(c) one-way targeted/narrow-cast information (e.g., algorithmic news feeds, advertising)

There's grey in between these. For example, you can write letters to the editor, or call in to radio stations.

I agree that it's great that the internet has allowed people to communicate with each other more easily with those who are not in their immediate physical community. And I agree that there are other areas of concern as well: traditional media isn't immune, and with the increase in the number of channels, the line between (b) and (c) becomes increasingly blurry.

For myself, a primary concern with algorithmic news feeds and targeted advertising is that it's less transparent. With broadcast TV and advertising, you've got a lot of people of diverse backgrounds watching. If something is being apparently misrepresented (in programming in general, not just news or advertising), it's likely that someone will be able to call them out on it. We have watchdog groups, fact checkers, and federal agencies to help keep people honest. These are human institutions so they're not perfect, but they do exist. The First Amendment helps protect things from getting too homogenized. The balance swings back and forth, and is more or less perfect depending on who you are. But there are mechanisms in place whose purpose is to try to keep things fair.

These mechanisms aren't in place for algorithmic news feeds and targeted advertising. Different people can be shown different ads or articles, with varying levels of truth, and not know what the other has seen. If I say I saw an news article about such and such, and you don't believe I did, we don't have a common place we can point to and see what I saw (unless I'm recording everything I do online). I can see something I think is fair and plays into my worldview, that if you saw it, you would say that's not fair. But you don't have the opportunity to, and I don't have the pushback to be informed where I might be wrong. This is the same dynamic that you describe with people watching only channels that speak to them, but on a more narrow, personalized scale. With broadcast media we have the opportunity to show each other what we saw. On a community scale, you could think of this as people talking behind each other's backs.

So, long story short, I think we're right to be focussed on both. I know I'm concerned about both, particularly the polarization aspects.

If you're interested in reading more about how the internet aspects are different and why they may be something we should be increasingly worried about even if we haven't seen strong effects of it yet (I think there were a lot of factors that went into the 2016 US Presidential election result, and some of the most definitely stronger than targeted advertising and algorithmic news feeds), I encourage you to take a look at some of the work Zeynep Tufecki[0] has done. [1][2] She's been looking at it for quite a while. Again, this isn't to dissuade you from thinking traditional media isn't something we need to worry about: I agree it definitely is. This targeting behavior is something new, and we also (hopefully) still have the opportunity to figure out mechanisms that will help make them a net positive benefit.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeynep_Tufekci

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/opinion/beware-the-big-da...

[2]: https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dy...