User concerns about ethical issues related to recommender systems in social media

Abstract: Popular social media platforms use recommender systems (RS) to improve users’ experience. However, these systems pose potential issues including political polarization and fake news spread. In addition, social media RS may raise many ethical issues, such as Privacy, Opacity, Fairness and Social Effects, regarding the collection and processing of data. The research problem of this study is the lack of knowledge regarding user concerns toward these issues. Therefore, this study attempts to address the research gap by studying user attitudes toward the aforementioned ethical issues. The main research is: What are users’ concerns about ethical issues of using recommender systems in social media platforms? For this study, a survey was chosen as the research strategy. A questionnaire was developed and distributed online to collect data. The data analysis is based on descriptive statistics using measures of central tendency by finding the median (the middle point). Key findings indicate that users are familiar and concerned with the major issues. In particular, users are concerned about how and what types of private data are collected. However, users are most concerned about the spread of fake news. Users also express concern about political polarization, although they do not believe they are personally affected. However, users would prefer that recommender algorithms use less private data, even if it compromises news feed quality. The study has limitations including a geographic focus on Europe and demographics. Nevertheless, the findings offer insights into user concerns about RS, paving the way for future research.