Related papers: Preference Dynamics Under Personalized Recommendat…
Despite extensive research, the mechanisms through which online platforms shape extremism and polarization remain poorly understood. We identify and test a mechanism, grounded in empirical evidence, that explains how ranking algorithms can…
Most modern recommendation algorithms are data-driven: they generate personalized recommendations by observing users' past behaviors. A common assumption in recommendation is that how a user interacts with a piece of content (e.g., whether…
The increasing reliance on digital platforms shapes how individuals understand the world, as recommendation systems direct users toward content "similar" to their existing preferences. While this process simplifies information retrieval,…
Personalization, including both self-selected and pre-selected, is inevitable when tremendous amounts of media content are available. Personalization, which is believed to cause people to consume fewer diverse contents, can lead to…
Recommender systems serve the dual purpose of presenting relevant content to users and helping content creators reach their target audience. The dual nature of these systems naturally influences both users and creators: users' preferences…
Recommendation systems are pervasive in the digital economy. An important assumption in many deployed systems is that user consumption reflects user preferences in a static sense: users consume the content they like with no other…
Polarization is a troubling phenomenon that can lead to societal divisions and hurt the democratic process. It is therefore important to develop methods to reduce it. We propose an algorithmic solution to the problem of reducing…
A central role in shaping the experience of users online is played by recommendation algorithms. On the one hand they help retrieving content that best suits users taste, but on the other hand they may give rise to the so called "filter…
This paper proposes a mathematical model to study the coupled dynamics of a Recommender System (RS) algorithm and content consumers (users). The model posits that a large population of users, each with an opinion, consumes personalised…
Recent work in news recommendation has demonstrated that recommenders can over-expose users to articles that support their pre-existing opinions. However, most existing work focuses on a static setting or over a short-time window, leaving…
The flow of information reaching us via the online media platforms is optimized not by the information content or relevance but by popularity and proximity to the target. This is typically performed in order to maximise platform usage. As a…
Modern web-based platforms show ranked lists of recommendations to users, attempting to maximise user satisfaction or business metrics. Typically, the goal of such systems boils down to maximising the exposure probability for items that are…
The vast majority of recommender systems model preferences as static or slowly changing due to observable user experience. However, spontaneous changes in user preferences are ubiquitous in many domains like media consumption and key…
We analyze the unintended effects that recommender systems have on the preferences of users that they are learning. We consider a contextual multi-armed bandit recommendation algorithm that learns optimal product recommendations based on…
Polarization is implicated in the erosion of democracy and the progression to violence, which makes the polarization properties of large algorithmic content selection systems (recommender systems) a matter of concern for peace and security.…
We investigate the dynamics of opinion formation on social networking platforms, focusing on how individual opinions, influenced by both social connections and platform algorithms, evolve. We model this process using a differential…
Social media platforms have become an integral part of everyday life, serving as a primary source of news and information for many users. These platforms increasingly rely on personalised recommendation systems that shape what users see and…
Political polarization appears to be on the rise, as measured by voting behavior, general affect towards opposing partisans and their parties, and contents posted and consumed online. Research over the years has focused on the role of the…
In many economically relevant contexts where machine learning is deployed, multiple platforms obtain data from the same pool of users, each of whom selects the platform that best serves them. Prior work in this setting focuses exclusively…
Polarization is a well-documented phenomenon across a wide range of social issues. However, prevailing theories often compartmentalize the examination of herding behavior and opinion convergence within different contexts. In this study, we…