{"paper":{"title":"YouTube Recommendations Reinforce Negative Emotions: Auditing Algorithmic Bias with Emotionally-Agentic Sock Puppets","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.CY"],"primary_cat":"cs.SI","authors_text":"Hussam Habib, Rishab Nithyanand","submitted_at":"2025-01-25T03:04:53Z","abstract_excerpt":"Personalized recommendation algorithms, like those on YouTube, significantly shape online content consumption. These systems aim to maximize engagement by learning users' preferences and aligning content accordingly but may unintentionally reinforce impulsive and emotional biases. Using a sock-puppet audit methodology, this study examines YouTube's capacity to recognize and reinforce emotional preferences. Simulated user accounts with assigned emotional preferences navigate the platform, selecting videos that align with their assigned preferences and recording subsequent recommendations. Our f"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2501.15048","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2501.15048/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}