Who is in Charge? You to the algorithm?

Ansgar KoeneExplorers Fair

11 February 2017

http://unbias.wp.horizon.ac.uk/

Algorithms in the news

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• User experience satisfaction on social network sites

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Human attenetion is a limited resource

Filter

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Good information service = good filtering

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Sacrificing control for Convenience

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Sacrificing control for Convenience

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Personalized recommendations

• Content based – similarity to past results the user liked

• Collaborative – results that similar users liked (people with statistically similar tastes/interests)

• Community based – results that people in the same social network liked(people who are linked on a social network e.g. ‘friends’)

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How do the algorithms work?

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Machine learning principles

Classifiers

Clustering

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User understanding of social media algorithms: Facebook News Feed

Of 40 interviewed participants more than 60% of Facebook users are entirely unaware of any algorithmic curation on Facebook at all: “They believed every single story from their friends and followed pages appeared in their news feed”.

Published at: CHI 2015

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Revealing News Feed behaviour

Revealing News Feed behaviour

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Participants indicate desired changes

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E. Bakshy, S. Medding & L.A. Adamic, “Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook” Science, 348, 1130-1132, 2015

Echo-chamber enhancement by NewsFeed algorithm

10.1 million active US Facebook users

Proportion of content that is cross-cutting15

E. Bakshy, S. Medding & L.A. Adamic, “Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook” Science, 348, 1130-1132, 2015

Positioning effect in NewsFeed

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Switch News Feed mode

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Take (some) control of News Feed priorities

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The BasicsBe aware that it is practically impossible to achieve full anonymity when you are online. Consider what you post and what you are comfortable sharing with others. And then: Regularly delete your search history and cookies. Activate ‘do not track’ features on your browsers. Install a browser plugin to track and block sites which are tracking you

(such as www.ghostery.com or www.disconnect.me). URLs that begin with https: are encrypting information that you send

them. Be careful of what you provide to sites without this, and try not to use a public wi-fi connection for shopping or banking.

Change your search engineDuckDuckGo does not track you, protects your privacy and avoids personalized search results, showing all users the same search results for a given search term. www.duckduckgo.com Qwant does not track users or filter posts, emphasising privacy and security. It runs on a social system based around community input, including trending stories and top news.www.qwant.com

Ideas To Stop Companies

Tracking Your Personal Data

Other things you can do:

This leaflet contains suggestions for tools that can help you to start thinking about alternatives to the default settings that allow people to track you online. Many other tools and solutions are available.

Change your browserOpera has a built-in ad blocker and a free Virtual Private Network (VPN). You can change your virtual location and stop sites from tracking you around the web. www.opera.com Firefox and other browsers also offer various VPN plug-ins and other add-ons to increase your online security.

For more ideas and resources go online to http://unbias.wp.horizon.ac.uk/

Don’t Forget Your Mobile!You can also disable tracking through the Settings options on both Android and Apple mobile devices through privacy, account, and security options. You can change which information individual apps are allowed to access, which accounts you link to your mobile device, and limit ad tracking. Explore these options to make sure you know what data you are sharing with whom.

Opt-out of tracking by individual companies

This can be time consuming and tricky but there are a few tools that will help you. The Digital Advertising Alliance Consumer Choice Page allows you to block many companies at once:http://www.aboutads.info/choices Your Online Choices provides a guide to ‘behavioural advertising’ where you can control your preferences:http://www.youronlinechoices.com

Stop companies tracking you through

FacebookApps enabled through Facebook may have access to details you do not want to share, and ads target you based on things you like and share. Apps used by friends can also see your data. Opt out of ad tracking and remove permissions in the settings menus accessible through the arrow in the top right of Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/settings

Stop Google tracking youYour Google settings have a tab for Ads Preferences where you can disable tracking for tailored ads and content:https://myaccount.google.com/privacy#adsHowever, their advertising cookie may still track you. There is a plugin available to opt-out of this: https://www.google.com/settings/ads/pluginYou can also stop Google from using your browsing data and search history by ‘pausing’ their tracking: https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrolsGoogle may also be able to use reviews, likes, follows etc. that you have posted as endorsements for products. You can turn these off here:https://plus.google.com/settings/endorsements

EPSRC funded UnBias project

http://unbias.wp.horizon.ac.uk/23