TY - GEN
T1 - Link recommendations
T2 - 14th ACM Web Science Conference, WebSci 2022
AU - Ferrara, Antonio
AU - Espin-Noboa, Lisette
AU - Karimi, Fariba
AU - Wagner, Claudia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Owner/Author.
PY - 2022/6/26
Y1 - 2022/6/26
N2 - Network-based people recommendation algorithms are widely employed on the Web to suggest new connections in social media or professional platforms. While such recommendations bring people together, the feedback loop between the algorithms and the changes in network structure may exacerbate social biases. These biases include rich-get-richer effects, filter bubbles, and polarization. However, social networks are diverse complex systems and recommendations may affect them differently, depending on their structural properties. In this work, we explore five people recommendation algorithms by systematically applying them over time to different synthetic networks. In particular, we measure to what extent these recommendations change the structure of bi-populated networks and show how these changes affect the minority group. Our systematic experimentation helps to better understand when link recommendation algorithms are beneficial or harmful to minority groups in social networks. In particular, our findings suggest that, while all algorithms tend to close triangles and increase cohesion, all algorithms except Node2Vec are prone to favor and suggest nodes with high in-degree. Furthermore, we found that, especially when both classes are heterophilic, recommendation algorithms can reduce the visibility of minorities.
AB - Network-based people recommendation algorithms are widely employed on the Web to suggest new connections in social media or professional platforms. While such recommendations bring people together, the feedback loop between the algorithms and the changes in network structure may exacerbate social biases. These biases include rich-get-richer effects, filter bubbles, and polarization. However, social networks are diverse complex systems and recommendations may affect them differently, depending on their structural properties. In this work, we explore five people recommendation algorithms by systematically applying them over time to different synthetic networks. In particular, we measure to what extent these recommendations change the structure of bi-populated networks and show how these changes affect the minority group. Our systematic experimentation helps to better understand when link recommendation algorithms are beneficial or harmful to minority groups in social networks. In particular, our findings suggest that, while all algorithms tend to close triangles and increase cohesion, all algorithms except Node2Vec are prone to favor and suggest nodes with high in-degree. Furthermore, we found that, especially when both classes are heterophilic, recommendation algorithms can reduce the visibility of minorities.
KW - Recommendation algorithms
KW - friendship recommendations
KW - homophily
KW - network science
KW - preferential attachment.
KW - social networks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133710575&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3501247.3531583
DO - 10.1145/3501247.3531583
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85133710575
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
SP - 228
EP - 238
BT - WebSci 2022 - Proceedings of the 14th ACM Web Science Conference
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 26 June 2022 through 29 June 2022
ER -