Identifying and Evaluating Methods for Testing the Impact of Recommender Systems

Ofcom has a requirement for a research project to investigate the use and impact of recommender systems by online services. We are seeking to develop our understanding of the key functionalities and features of in-scope services. One of these is the use of algorithmically-driven recommender systems, which are used to serve up content both on search services (e.g. search engine sites) and user-to-user services (e.g. social media platforms and video sharing platforms). We are seeking to collect evidence on how these 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. This research will inf…