In The Daily We: Is the Internet Really a Blessing for Democracy, Sunstein discusses the ways in which the Internet and the way users utilize it can be a blessing and a curse. Though the internet gives people the ability to learn far more than they could before, and at a much faster rate, the concept that the majority of users are filtering out what they don’t want to see is becoming a problem for democracy, and generally speaking, the well-being of society as a whole. 

By filtering our internet usage, we direct ourselves to what we see based on what we care to inform ourselves on and further believe in. But, as Sunstein notes, in order to live in a heterogeneous society, we as users need to see everything, not just what we want. This is the beauty of reading a newspaper or watching the evening news, something Sunstein refers to as a public forum or a general interest intermediary. We may turn on the news to listen to what we want, but with it we get information that we wouldn’t otherwise look for. The same goes for a newspaper. As human beings, it is no secret that we are geared towards relationships and friendships with people who are similar to us, because we are able to have shared experiences and interests that bring us closer together. But this has expanded to the internet, pushing us into a bubble of information and into groups of people that may not always have reliable information, and blocking off opposing views that we don’t care to see. This happens often with politics and democracy, and in order to be a democracy, we must all be informed on everything, both sides of the argument, even if we align ourselves with one as opposed to the other. Sunstein also lays out a few recommendations for resolving this issue, including the idea of hyperlinks online, where you are looking for information on something you want to look at, but are confronted with a link that will take you somewhere else for different information you wouldn’t have originally looked for. 

Lastly, Sunstein says that a “Well-functioning democracy depends on far more than restraints on official censorship of controversial ideas and opinions” and I believe this to be true. Regardless of the misinformation epidemic that we have all experienced and discussed, the black holes we jump into make us as a society less-educated and less equipped to run effectively, starting with democracy.