Three Distinct User Positions towards Algorithms

The final speakers in this AoIR 2018 session are Willian Fernandez Araújo and João Carlos Magalhães; they are interested in how ordinary people comprehend algorithms, and captured Portuguese-language tweets that used relevant terms to explore this.

User mentioned the algorithms’ actions (80%); the consequences of algorithms; user actions in response to algorithms; the qualities of the algorithms; emotional responses to algorithms; sources of user perceptions of algorithms; and the user’s own positioning towards algorithms. They mainly talked about acts by ‘the algorithm’, including the prioritisation of specific content, content and connection suggestions, and content distribution.

Accounts of algorithms were mainly (56%) critical, and mainly focussed on Facebook. Users positioned themselves in three distinct ways as a critical subject, pointing out the limitations and failures of algorithms; as an agentive subject, testing how algorithms would respond to particular activity patterns; and as a represented subject, reflecting on how well the algorithm had come to understand their personal preferences.

This suggests that algorithmic identities can be consciously co-developed between users and algorithms; that algorithms are cultural products; and that algorithms give rise to a new type of agentive audience.