What is the relationship between algorithmic personalization and online radicalization?

Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok use personalization algorithms to customize users’ experiences based on what users view, like, share, and comment on. This process can result in a negative feedback loop in which users are largely exposed to political content that reinforces their pre-existing views or, even worse, content that is more and more extreme. Studying the interaction between platform algorithms and social media users will help us understand whether and how individuals become radicalized online. This project aims to uncover the technological, psychological, and cultural factors that contribute to the radicalization of vulnerable groups on social media due to algorithmic personalization.

This research is funded by a 3-year grant from the Minerva Research Initiative. 

Select Publications

Biddle, K., Ekdale, B., High, A., Stoldt, R., & Maragh-Lloyd, R. (2024). Beyond ‘Lulz’ and ‘Keyboard warriors’: Exploring the relationship between trolling and radicalization. Information, Communication & Society. Advanced online publication.
 

Habib, H., Srinivasan, P., and Nithyanand, R. (2022) How participation, interaction, and perception in online communities increase radical behavior. Proceedings of 2022 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2022).