Recommender system is a system designed to provide user with more ‘relative’ content. Simply put, the more content you see, the more similar content you’re going to get. In most cases, this type of behavior is what the user want. For example, if I like rock music, I certainly want to hear more rock music. And for companies like Amazon, they can generate more revenue if the user tend to buy more of the same category of product. However, it also can be wrongly used.
In my opinion, people in general can be influenced very easily, people tend to hear or believe what they already believe in. More educated people can grow a habit of giving others the benefit of the doubt, but that’s very hard to achieve, especially when facing another group of people. People also tend to like being able to feel good about themselves, it happens all the time: Iphone users think they are superior than Android users; PC master race is a thing; Emacs is better than Vim or the other way around. Often than not when people ask what’s one’s favorite ‘xxx’ is, they’re not interested in a genuine discussion about the pros and cons of ‘xxx’, they just want to know if you’re ‘on their side’. Speaking of the ‘taking side’ thing, people tend to stay on their side once they took a side, because common believes often consider switching side is a humiliating thing to do, so they’re in a way being forced to stay. I rarely have favorite things because I know things are just things and new information in the future may change my opinion, but I’m also susceptible to ‘want to feel good about myself’. In short, people are biased and stubborn, and they often feel pride being that. It can get even more complicated and dangerous when money is involved, manipulating how a group of people think can be a business. Obviously news media is the largest business, see also how Cambridge Analytica influenced trump’s election and brexit. However keep in mind that I’m talking about group of people here, a single person often can be rational and reasonable.
That’s why I believe some kind of regulation must come into play. I’d like to talk about the obvious: Recommender system amplifies the feelings. If someone is depressed somehow, it better for him to see less of the ‘dark’ side of society, but with a system like this, we can only hope he doesn’t click on something bad.
When it boils down to how do we carry out such regulation, it’s rather simple. I think one should have the freedom of choosing how his recommender system works, specifically on the relativeness degree. For example, Youtube could have a setting to change whether I want to see relative content, or even have the setting to recommend me the ‘opposite’ content. It’s hard to define what’s the ‘opposite’ content, but that’s the ultimate direction we should be heading for. Imagine being free on the Internet to see whatever I want, rather than being fed what they think I want to see. The future is now old man.