I had a discussion about cells membranes and boundaries with a friend. The discussion arose from a quote by Fritjof Capra in his course The Systems View Of Life: “Boundaries in the biological realm are not boundaries of separation but boundaries of identity”. My friend’s questions was ‘What is the function of a membrane in social dynamics?’

This discussion about social membranes creating social identity reminds me about the phenomenon of “filter bubbles” created by the algorithms of social media platforms (for those unfamiliar with the concept, Eli Pariser’s TED talk is a good entry point. Basically, by editing what information we get access to (through search or in our newsfeed), online algorithms create a membrane around us that narrowly define our identity, and this is reinforced by constantly feeding us more of the same.


A few years ago in 2017, I did an explorative and investigative study on Facebook to interrogate the algorithmic black box. I created two fake profiles, Samsara Marks (female) and Bertrand Wooster (male). Samsara’s profile was richly fleshed out (highly educated professional with feminist interests), but gave FB only minimal info about Bertrand: his age (late 40s), a (random) Hong Kong mobile number, his residency (Hong Kong), his country of citizenship (UK) (and of course FB had pieces of digital info even though I created the profile behind the university’s firewall from a random computer at uni).


With this limited info, FB suggested 150 friends for Bertrand at the first login (interestingly most of them outside of Hong Kong). I accepted all FB suggestions (and subsequent suggestions as well). I am not going to bore you with details, but to make a long story short, Bertrand found himself transported to the bowels of FB: explicit sexual content, prostitution and what I suspected could be pedophile networks, and “how to” videos on how to make weapons to shoot down missiles (I am not making this up) amongst others. Friendless but highly accomplished Samsara on the other hand keeps receiving ads for kitchen appliances and dresses.


My purpose for posting this is to bring attention to the active role of social platforms in shaping sociability and creating social membranes around us. One of the conclusions of the experience was that, once the algorithms has established the membrane, it takes conscious efforts, extreme determination and a very consistent strategy to change what the membrane lets in and out.