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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner

Filter Program  
  Using programs to filter Internet results; a person need see only what they want to see.  

This is a very early reference to a problem that has become increasingly common, and has already divided our country into groups of people who are completely unable to agree on the simplest things.

People bought personalized filter programs to skim a few droplets from that sea [of information] and keep the rest out. For some, subjective reality became the selected entertainments and special-interest zines passed though by those tailored shells.

...a woman hears and reads only opinions that match her own, because other points of view are culled by her loyal guardian software.

Technovelgy from Earth, by David Brin.
Published by Bantam in 1990
Additional resources -

As it turns out, one of the characters has a plan to avoid that problem:

To avoid such staleness, Jen had hired a famous rogue hacker... to design her own filter... one in five files would pop up randomly, in defiance of her own parameters.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Earth
  More Ideas and Technology by David Brin
  Tech news articles related to Earth
  Tech news articles related to works by David Brin

Filter Program-related news articles:
  - UK Internet Filters Default To 'Family-Friendly'

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Science Fiction in the News

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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'

Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again?
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'

Mornine Sales Robot
'Robot-salesmen were everywhere, gesturing...'

Bipedal Robot Floats Gently While Walking
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'

Elegant Bivouac Shelter Produces Water And Electricity
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'

X-Control Janus-1 A Suitcase Aircraft
'You will notice that it... fits the suitcase nicely.'

'AI Assistants' Are Actually Less Reliable For News
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'

YES!! Remote Teleoperated Robots predicted by Technovelgy!
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'

Will Robots Ever Fold Landry?
Where have you gone, Mrs. Robinson?

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