Technology Primer: Social Media Recommendation Algorithms

USA

The use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok is increasingly wide- spread, currently amounting to billions of users worldwide. In 2021, a majority of adults in the U.S. reported using at least one social media site, with the most popular ones being YouTube (81 percent) and Facebook (69 percent), and TikTok being especially common among 18–24-year-olds (55 percent). Billions of pieces of content are published daily by users including individuals, public figures, interest groups, and organizations. Content ranges from personal updates to entertainment, tutorials, and news stories. In 2021, about one in two Americans reported getting their news from social media at least sometimes. Social media companies deploy proprietary recommendation algorithms to automate the selection, ranking, and presentation of content on the platform’s “feed” or recommended content section, every time a user opens or refreshes the site or app. YouTube estimates that over 70 percent of views o...

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Language: eng
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Overton ID

belfercenter-2db3979eeb9f124e7fa0d478c4733e56

Topics in this document

Facebook Recommender system YouTube Section 230 General Data Protection Regulation Artificial intelligence Echo chamber (media) TikTok Privacy Digital Markets Act Misinformation Big Tech Machine learning Digital Services Act Feed (Facebook) Children's Online Privacy Protection Act Technology Computing Social media Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act Personal data Branches of science Mass media Information privacy Communications Decency Act Prediction Monopoly Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Meta Platforms Collaborative filtering

Related COFOG Divisions

1: General Public Services 1.1: Executive and legislative organs, financial and fiscal affairs, external affairs

Cites research funded by

National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka 1 Ministry of Science,Technology and Research 1 European Research Council 1 National Science Foundation 3 Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions 1 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation 1 Craig Newmark Philanthropies 1 Horizon 2020 Framework Programme 1 NSF (Special project, May 2022) 2 Society for Personality and Social Psychology 1 Russell Sage Foundation 1 Twitter, Inc. 1 University of Washington 1 Knight Foundation 1 The Ethics Governance of AI Initiative 1 Data Transparency Lab 1 Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, University of California Berkeley 1 Google 1

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Cited by 1 other policy document (all of them are from other policy sources)