{"id":16742,"date":"2021-03-16T14:29:19","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T14:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/?p=16742"},"modified":"2024-12-11T00:49:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T00:49:20","slug":"algorithmic-biases-in-youtube-recommendations-of-vaccine-videos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/2021\/03\/16\/algorithmic-biases-in-youtube-recommendations-of-vaccine-videos\/","title":{"rendered":"Examining Algorithmic Biases in YouTube\u2019s Recommendations of Vaccine Videos [New Paper Alert]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In our new study, Examining Algorithmic Biases in YouTube\u2019s Recommendations of Vaccine Videos, recently published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics<\/em>, we ask: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. What is the prevalence of pro-, neutral- and anti-vaccine videos on YouTube?<\/li>
  2. In the network of vaccine-related video recommendations, does the sentiment of the video (anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine) influence the likelihood of a video being recommended? In other words, are anti-vaccine videos more likely to be recommended than pro-vaccine videos?<\/li>
  3. Do we observe a homophily effect among pro- and anti-vaccine videos? For example, do pro-vaccine videos tend to recommend more pro-vaccine videos and vice versa?<\/li><\/ol>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    \"\"
    Sample recommendations of vaccine-related videos on YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Summary Results<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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    \"\"
    The network visualization above shows the network of 2122 recommended YouTube videos. In this network, each node represents a single video with vaccination content, and the connections represent YouTube\u2019s recommendation of videos. Pro-vaccine videos are shown in green, anti-vaccine videos in red, neutral videos in black.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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    Based on the social network analysis of a large sample of 2122 vaccine-related videos on YouTube, we found:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. More pro-vaccine videos (64.75%) than anti-vaccine (19.98%) videos are on YouTube, with 15.27% of videos being neutral in sentiment. <\/li>
    2. YouTube was more likely to recommend neutral and pro-vaccine videos than anti-vaccine videos. <\/li>
    3. There is a homophily effect in which pro-vaccine videos were more likely to recommend other pro-vaccine videos than anti-vaccine ones, and vice versa.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Compared to our 2017 study<\/a>, the share of recommendations for pro-vaccine videos has noticeably increased, suggesting that YouTube\u2019s demonetization policy of harmful content and other changes to their recommender algorithm might have been effective in reducing the visibility of anti-vaccine videos in 2019. However, there are still concerns that anti-vaccine videos are less likely to lead users to pro-vaccine videos due to the homophily effect observed in the recommendation network.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

      The study demonstrates the influence of YouTube\u2019s recommender systems on the types of vaccine information users discover on YouTube. We conclude with a general discussion of the importance of algorithmic transparency in how social media platforms like YouTube decide what content to feature and recommend to its users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      For more details about the study method and other information, see the full-text at https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.ijmedinf.2020.104175<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Abul-Fottouh, D., Song, M. Y., & Gruzd, A. (2020). Examining algorithmic biases in YouTube\u2019s recommendations of vaccine videos. International Journal of Medical Informatics<\/em>, 104175. [Open Access<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      In our new study, Examining Algorithmic Biases in YouTube\u2019s Recommendations of Vaccine Videos, recently published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics, we ask: What is the prevalence of pro-, neutral- and anti-vaccine videos on YouTube? In the network of vaccine-related video recommendations, does the sentiment of the video (anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine) influence the likelihood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":16754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[483,494],"tags":[233,527,110],"class_list":["post-16742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-misinformation","tag-social-network-analysis","tag-vaccination","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16742"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21444,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16742\/revisions\/21444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}