Outstanding Student Presentation Award Winner
Abstract: In this day and age, we have witnessed the rise of applications such as Tik Tok which incorporate Machine Learning (ML) into their algorithms. These algorithms have proven to be extremely successful with user influx and retainment. However, the consequences of such technology can simultaneously place users in a dangerous situation in terms of privacy and mental health. Tik Tok’s powerful algorithm has unfortunately set the example for other applications to replicate its features and profit from its success. As of this day, Tik Tok is currently in legal battle against the United States regarding the potential prohibition of the application unless Tik Tok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, sells the application. In this presentation, we will explore the ethical principles that are at stake with Tik Tok’s current practices and the design of their application, an analysis of the current legal battle between the US and Tik Tok, and an application of a privacy by design approach to mitigate and/or eliminate privacy risks.
What’s most compelling is how you’ve framed TikTok not just as a social media application, but as a watershed moment in technological ethics. By highlighting the algorithm’s remarkable user engagement alongside its profound privacy and mental health implications, you’re revealing the double-edged nature of contemporary machine learning technologies.
Thank you, Christina! I appreciate your feedback. These are frightening times we live in, in terms of online safety. Users are paying for the ethical mistakes of the developers. It is definitely also a breach in trust.
Very interesting presentation. Your analysis of TikTok is very thorough and informative. You highlight the behavior or its recommendation engines and the lack of a privacy by design approach. This really brings to light the need for a set of ethical requirements for social media platforms.
Thank you, Dr. M! I really appreciate your thoughts and thank you for encouraging me to participate in this conference!
Thank you so much Michelle! Mooradian is great, right? The primary focus of my research in the MLIS program has been on ethical AI as it relates to education. Ivevtaught middle school English for 8 years, so I’ve seen what tik tok has done to students over time, and they are woefully ignorant of its dangers, and even when confronted with them, remain indifferent
To them the predatory algorithms are a major concern, and Facebook Reels is another that mimics tik toks algorithms.one of the major ethical problems is the black box. Transparency is bad for business in the AI world, so a possible solution is the open source ai model, which China is already pioneering, ( when deepseek came put last month, it panicked western ai companies) as long as Chinese interests control byte dance, tik tok will advance Chinese interests. Unfortunately, it’s users don’t really care. Some solutions mauly involve western companies creating a better product, or the US finding a way to hack tik tok to disable its intelligence gathering abilities. From my perspective as an educator, however, we teach young people, and everyone, how ai works, how tok tok works, demonstrate exactly how it uses their data against them, and let parents and adults make informed decisions. As a fellow student of ethical ai, I’d love to talk with you about your research and. Perhaps collaborate on some. Robertmartinez84@gmail.com