Understanding the Use and Impact of Recommender Systems by Online Services.

Ofcom has a requirement for a research project to investigate the use and impact of recommender systems by online services. We are seeking to collect evidence on how recommender systems function at a technical level, where and how they are used in practice, the risks they present to users, and how these risks can be mitigated. While we are interested in how the use and design of recommender systems can increase user exposure to harmful content of all kinds, our priority focus for this work is illegal content. This...