Ed West Ed West

Internet news is driving us apart, not bringing us together

Congratulations to Kate and William, and Baby Cambridge, who has an extensive Wikipedia entry already but no name. The poor couple faced the cameras yesterday with good grace, which is the last thing you’d want in their situation; after my wife’s last labour was over I looked like one of the crew from Das Boot and I’d barely done anything.

Not everyone is so keen to join in, which is why The Guardian has been offering readers the chance to switch off all coverage of royalty with a ‘republican’ button. It’s an interesting foretaste of newspapers tailoring news and comment towards an individual’s own interests. Facebook and Google already use filter bubbles, so that news feeds ‘edit out’ the updates of people whose links you’re less likely to click on, in my case those Leftie friends’ posts about 38 degrees.

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