Amnesty International warns that TikTok’s recommendations push children towards harmful mental health
In a press release and two reports (Driven into Darkness and “I feel Exposed”), Amnesty International strongly criticizes the recommender system of TikTok. I have...
YouTube changes content recommendations to enhance ‘Teen Wellbeing’
James Beser, Director of Product Management YouTube Kids and Youth, reports that YouTube has updated its recommender system to better cater to the needs of...
Algorithms aren’t fair. Robin Burke wants to change that. [Press Release Colorado U]
The University of Colorado Boulder released a press release about the well-known recommender-systems researcher Robin Burke, titled “Algorithms aren’t fair. Robin Burke wants to change...
YouTube’s recommendations are still bad – says Mozilla
New research published today by Mozilla backs that notion up, suggesting YouTube’s AI continues to puff up piles of “bottom-feeding”/low-grade/divisive/disinforming content — stuff that tries...
Facebook Quietly Suspended Political Group Recommendations Ahead Of The US Presidential Election [BuzzFeed]
A few days before the US election, Facebook deactivated its recommender system for political content, according to BuzzFeed (Ryan Mac & Craig Silverman). Interestingly, this...
Big tech’s ‘blackbox’ [recommendation] algorithms face regulatory oversight under EU plans [Natasha Lomas @ TechCrunch]
The EU plans to require large tech firms to disclose how their algorithms work, including recommendations algorithms, reports Natasha Lomas from TechCrunch. In a speech today Commission...
Mozilla is Crowdsourcing Research into (Harmful) YouTube Recommendations [Ashley Boyd @ Mozilla]
YouTube recommendations can be delightful, but they can also be dangerous. The platform has a history of recommending harmful content — from pandemic conspiracies to...
Google restricts its recommender-system for search queries (aka auto-completion) for election-related searches
Google (Pandu Nayak, VP Search) announced yesterday that Google would expand its “protection” policies to its search-query recommender-system a.k.a. auto-completion for election-related searches. We expanded...
IBM gets out of facial recognition business, calls on Congress to advance policies tackling racial injustice [Lauren Hirsch @ CNBC]
Face recognition is a potentially interesting technique for recommender systems (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4). However, IBM decided now to stop all facial recognition business...