Recommender Systems and Internet Lynch Mobs
The Turkish/Armenian example is an enduring debate regarding the admission of a genocide by the Turkish government. This issue even predates the television so it should be no surprise that this battle is also reflected online. What makes the online scenario different to news media or the pulpit, is how prone it is to exploitation. Recommender systems are part of a litany of potential exploits for political targets, but unlike lone-wolf hacks or conventionally nefarious data breaches, the targeting of a recommender system is crowd-sourced and perfectly legal. Not only this, but the responsibility incumbent upon the actors is often spread very thin and then further diminished by the “moral crusader” mentality.
A similarly religiously-motivated example was in 2015, where a Kate Breslin novel was attacked for its controversial plot line. People were particularly uproarious over a fictional Jewish woman falling in love with the head of a Nazi concentration camp. Groups online singled the book’s Amazon page and gave one-star reviews to the point where it inaccurately reflected a true score away from actual fans or readers of the book. It was an act of pure censorship, yet the individual actors were comfortable in their mob anonymity, which is a key point and offers some clues in to a few solutions to this problem.
While spewing anonymous hate and trolling the internet is the new great American pastime, some level of accountability ought to be expected when providing reviews or insight into various topics or products. The risk to this is that you lose participation rates, but sites ought to consider methods to incentivize thoughtful reviews and reward sane people. Stackoverflow’s ‘tiered’ method of earning review privileges offers a beacon of light. This could not only protect the review system’s integrity, but also elevate consumption in general and generate better products in general.
Sources
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/12/anne-rice-blasts-internet-lynch-mobs-we-are-facing/