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Ah, that's the great puzzle: On the Quest of a Holistic Understanding of the Harms of Recommender Systems on Children

Robin Ungruh, Maria Soledad Pera

TL;DR

The paper presents a holistic, harm-focused perspective on how recommender systems (RS) influence children's online experiences. It argues that current RS, largely designed for adults, may expose children to harmful content and biases, including misinformation and stereotypes. Its core contribution is a conceptual framework that treats $3$ interacting factors—children, RS domain/strategy, and harms—as puzzle pieces that must be analyzed jointly. The authors advocate for multi-stakeholder collaboration to develop guidelines, auditing practices, and safety-oriented RS designs, with the aim of safeguarding children's well-being in digital environments. This perspective has practical implications for policy, platform design, and child development research.

Abstract

Children come across various media items online, many of which are selected by recommender systems (RS) primarily designed for adults. The specific nature of the content selected by RS to display on online platforms used by children - although not necessarily targeting them as a user base - remains largely unknown. This raises questions about whether such content is appropriate given children's vulnerable stages of development and the potential risks to their well-being. In this position paper, we reflect on the relationship between RS and children, emphasizing the possible adverse effects of the content this user group might be exposed to online. As a step towards fostering safer interactions for children in online environments, we advocate for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to undertake a more comprehensive examination of the impact of RS on children - one focused on harms. This would result in a more holistic understanding that could inform the design and deployment of strategies that would better suit children's needs and preferences while actively mitigating the potential harm posed by RS; acknowledging that identifying and addressing these harms is complex and multifaceted.

Ah, that's the great puzzle: On the Quest of a Holistic Understanding of the Harms of Recommender Systems on Children

TL;DR

The paper presents a holistic, harm-focused perspective on how recommender systems (RS) influence children's online experiences. It argues that current RS, largely designed for adults, may expose children to harmful content and biases, including misinformation and stereotypes. Its core contribution is a conceptual framework that treats interacting factors—children, RS domain/strategy, and harms—as puzzle pieces that must be analyzed jointly. The authors advocate for multi-stakeholder collaboration to develop guidelines, auditing practices, and safety-oriented RS designs, with the aim of safeguarding children's well-being in digital environments. This perspective has practical implications for policy, platform design, and child development research.

Abstract

Children come across various media items online, many of which are selected by recommender systems (RS) primarily designed for adults. The specific nature of the content selected by RS to display on online platforms used by children - although not necessarily targeting them as a user base - remains largely unknown. This raises questions about whether such content is appropriate given children's vulnerable stages of development and the potential risks to their well-being. In this position paper, we reflect on the relationship between RS and children, emphasizing the possible adverse effects of the content this user group might be exposed to online. As a step towards fostering safer interactions for children in online environments, we advocate for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to undertake a more comprehensive examination of the impact of RS on children - one focused on harms. This would result in a more holistic understanding that could inform the design and deployment of strategies that would better suit children's needs and preferences while actively mitigating the potential harm posed by RS; acknowledging that identifying and addressing these harms is complex and multifaceted.
Paper Structure (4 sections, 2 figures)

This paper contains 4 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Down the Rabbit Hole: Children's Exposure to Online Media
  2. The Red Queen: The Role of Recommender Systems on Media Exposure and Potential Harms
  3. Through the Looking Glass: The Need for a Holistic Exploration
  4. Guided by the Cheshire Cat: Promoting Children's Well-Being

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Screenshots of Netflix's home page on a Kids profile (on the left) and the YouTube Kids recommendations tab (on the right). Netflix's content is mainly curated and annotated with human-generated maturity ratings. YouTube does not provide maturity ratings and consists mainly of user-generated content.
  • Figure 2: Visualization of the holistic view that interconnects three 3 factors for analysis: Children, RS (domain and/or strategy), and Harms. In this specific example, the holistic view focuses on scrutinizing the problem explicitly for a group of young children, book RS, and misinformation as the harm.