Algorithmic Auditing, the Holocaust, and Search Engine Bias

The ongoing digitisation of individual and collective remembrance results in the growing role of algorithmic curation of information about the past by web search engines. This process, however, raises multiple concerns, in particular considering that performance of complex algorithmic systems, including the ones dealing with web search, is often subjected to bias. In this guest post, Mykola Makhortykh shares his experience of studying biases in visual representation of the Holocaust across six major search engines, and discusses its implications for Holocaust remembrance

Sociotechnical imaginaries of algorithmic governance in EU policy on online disinformation and FinTech

Datafication and the use of algorithmic systems increasingly blur distinctions between policy fields. In the financial sector, for example, algorithms are used in credit scoring, money has become transactional data sought after by large data-driven companies, while financial technologies (FinTech) are emerging as a locus of information warfare. To grasp the context specificity of algorithmic governance and the assumptions on which its evaluation within different domains is based, we comparatively study the sociotechnical imaginaries of algorithmic governance in European Union (EU) policy on online disinformation and FinTech. We find that sociotechnical imaginaries prevalent in EU policy documents on disinformation and FinTech are highly divergent. While the first can be characterized as an algorithm-facilitated attempt to return to the presupposed status quo (absence of manipulation) without a defined future imaginary, the latter places technological innovation at the centre of realizing a globally competitive Digital Single Market

Animating the subjugated past: Digital greeting cards as a form of counter-memory

This article discusses how popular culture products – digital greeting cards – interact with hegemonic historical narratives in the context of war remembrance. It employs the Foucauldian concept of counter-memory to analyse how user-generated mnemonic content interacts with historical power relations. Using content analysis to examine a sample of amateur greeting cards, the authors investigate how these cultural products engage with official and counter-official memory practices in Russia related to the Soviet victory in the Second World War. Specifically, the article explores how different visual elements are employed to (de)construct specific narratives about the Soviet victory and it discusses how the use of computer graphics, in particular animation, influences the potential role of greeting cards as a means of resurrecting the subjugated past

There can be only one truth: Ideological segregation and online news communities in Ukraine

The paper examines ideological segregation among Ukrainian users in online environments, using as a case study partisan news communities on Vkontakte, the largest online platform in post-communist states. Its findings suggest that despite their insignificant numbers, partisan news communities attract substantial attention from Ukrainian users and can encourage the formation of isolated ideological cliques – or ‘echo chambers’ – that increase societal polarisation. The paper also investigates factors that predict users’ interest in partisan content and establishes that the region of residence is the key predictor of selective consumption of pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian partisan news content

Can Filter Bubbles Protect Information Freedom? Discussions of Algorithmic News Recommenders in Eastern Europe

The increasing use of recommender systems to provide personalized news delivery influences media systems worldwide. Using different data sources to predict what content will be interesting for specific readers, recommender systems can better accommodate individual information needs, but also raise concerns about potential audience fragmentation. However, current assessments of the effects of news personalization are predominantly based on observations from Western democracies. This Western-centric approach raises concerns about these assessments’ applicability to other contexts, in particular non-democratic ones, and brings to question the influence of prevalent Western conceptualisations of news personalization (e.g., filter bubbles) on attitudes towards it in non-Western countries. To address this gap, we scrutinize discussions of the promises and threats of news personalization in countries characterized by limited press freedom: Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Using document analysis, we examine how three categories of actors—academics, journalists and IT specialists—discuss news personalization and the ways it can affect the public sphere. Through our analysis we uncover how Western conceptualisations of news personalization interact with discussions about it in non-democratic media systems and scrutinize whether existing concerns about personalization are applicable to non-Western contexts

This is what a pandemic looks like: Visual framing of COVID-19 on search engines

In today's high-choice media environment, search engines play an integral role in informing individuals and societies about the latest events. The importance of search algorithms is even higher at the time of crisis, when users search for information to understand the causes and the consequences of the current situation and decide on their course of action. In our paper, we conduct a comparative audit of how different search engines prioritize visual information related to COVID-19 and what consequences it has for the representation of the pandemic. Using a virtual agent-based audit approach, we examine image search results for the term "coronavirus" in English, Russian and Chinese on five major search engines: Google, Yandex, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo. Specifically, we focus on how image search results relate to generic news frames (e.g., the attribution of responsibility, human interest, and economics) used in relation to COVID-19 and how their visual composition varies between the search engines.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure, 3 table