Related papers: How Decentralization Affects User Agency on Social…
In the current paradigm of digital personalized services, the centralized management of personal data raises significant privacy concerns, security vulnerabilities, and diminished individual autonomy over sensitive information. Despite…
Digital identity is shifting from service- and network-centric approaches toward user-centric ones that promise users increased control over their data. Despite their decentralised design, such approaches often reintroduce centralised…
Modern digital services have evolved into indispensable tools, driving the present large-scale information systems. Yet, the prevailing platform-centric model, where services are optimized for platform-driven metrics such as engagement and…
This paper aims to provide a new perspective on the interplay between decentralization -- a prevalent character of multi-agent systems -- and centralization, i.e., the task of imposing central control to meet system-level goals. In…
The sharing of data and digital assets in a decentralized settling is associated with various legislative challenges, including, but not limited to, the need to adhere to legal requirements with respect to privacy (e.g. data protection…
Bluesky is a nascent Twitter-like and decentralized social media network with novel features and unprecedented data access. This paper provides a characterization of its interaction network, studying the political leaning, polarization,…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to significantly benefit or harm humanity. At present, a few for-profit companies largely control the development and use of this technology, and therefore determine its outcomes. In an effort…
A debate in the research community has buzzed in the background for years: should large-scale Internet services be centralized or decentralized? Now-common centralized cloud and web services have downsides -- user lock-in and loss of…
Twitter may be considered as a decentralized social information processing platform whose users constantly receive their followees' information feeds, which they may in turn dispatch to their followers. This decentralization is not devoid…
The vast majority of applications at this moment rely on centralized servers to relay messages between clients, where these servers are considered trusted third-parties. With the rise of blockchain technologies over the last few years,…
Radicalized beliefs, such as those tied to QAnon, Russiagate, and other political conspiracy theories, can lead some individuals and groups to engage in violent behavior, as evidenced in recent months. Understanding the mechanisms by which…
The decentralized architecture of Internet sparkled techno-utopian visions of a virtual freedom space for humanity. Peer-to-peer systems, collaborative creation (wikipedia), open source software (Linux), universal shared knowledge, and the…
AI-driven recommender systems are often perceived as personalization black boxes, limiting users' ability to understand how their data shapes content (information asymmetry) or to influence system behavior meaningfully (power asymmetry).…
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.…
Participation on social media platforms has many benefits but also poses substantial threats. Users often face an unintended loss of privacy, are bombarded with mis-/disinformation, or are trapped in filter bubbles due to over-personalized…
In order to truly understand how social media might shape online discourses or contribute to societal polarization, we need refined models of platform choice, that is: models that help us understand why users prefer one social media…
We present a mechanism that puts users in the center of control and empowers them to dictate the access to their collections of data. Revisiting the fundamental mechanisms in security for providing protection, our solution uses…
This paper examines artificial intelligence (AI) companionship as a site where intimate relations are simultaneously produced, extracted from, and governed through datafied systems. Drawing on critical data studies and platform studies, we…
Adolescents heavily rely on social media to build and maintain close relationships, yet current platform designs often make self-disclosure feel risky or uncomfortable. Through a three-part study involving 19 teens aged 13-18, we identify…
We study the impact of content moderation policies in online communities. In our theoretical model, a platform chooses a content moderation policy and individuals choose whether or not to participate in the community according to the…