FeedVis

Abstract

Social media feeds, personalized search results and recommendations are examples of algorithmically curated content in our daily digital Life. While the algorithms that curated this content have great power to shape users' experiences, they are mostly hidden behind the interface, leaving users unaware of their presence. Whether it is helpful to give users knowledge of the algorithms' existence and if this knowledge affects interaction behavior are open questions. To assist us in addressing these questions, we developed a system, FeedVis, that exposes Facebook users to comparisons between algorithmically curated and unadulterated News Feeds. We used the tools visualizations as concrete artifacts to study users' perceptions of the algorithms governing their social media feeds.