Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an important component of contemporary social media platforms as it enables recommendation systems that determine what users view. The primary objective of these recommendation systems is to improve user engagement by providing users with content according to their preferences and behavior. Nevertheless these systems also pose significant ethical concerns with respect to privacy, bias, transparency, misinformation and autonomy. This research paper examines the ethical issues associated with AI-based recommendation systems in social media platforms, their impact on society and the existing ethical frameworks and approaches.
Keywords
Artificial Intelligence Ethics Social Media Recommendation Systems Algorithmic Bias Privacy TransparencyReferences
- 1. “Survey Responses 200,” Dataset, [Online]. Available: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s3RDCL20PcAA0XTaJ4oeYW1TUG6oFMn/view?usp=sharing
- 2. , “The ethics of artificial intelligence: Issues and initiatives,” Tech. Rep., 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/634452/EPRS_STU(2020)634452_EN.pdf
- 3. , “Toward fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in AI for social media and health care: Scoping review,” Journal of Medical Internet Research, vol. 10, p. e47447, 2024, doi: 10.2196/47447.
- 4. , “Chinese cyberbullying detection: Dataset, method, and validation,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.20654v1, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://arxiv.org/html/2505.20654v1
- 5. , “This is not a game: The addictive allure of digital companions,” Seattle University Law Review, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2918&context=sulr
- 6. , “A multi-modal in-the-wild benchmark of deepfakes circulated in 2024,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.02857v2, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://arxiv.org/html/2503.02857v2
- 7. , “Chinese cyberbullying detection: Dataset, method, and validation,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.20654v1, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://arxiv.org/html/2505.20654v1
- 8. , “AI4People—An ethical framework for a good AI society,” Minds and Machines, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 689–707, 2018.
- 9. , Atlas of AI. New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300209570/atlas-of-ai/
- 10. , Weapons of Math Destruction. New York, NY, USA: Crown, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/
- 11. , “The ethics of artificial intelligence: Issues and initiatives,” Tech. Rep., 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/634452/EPRS_STU(2020)634452_EN.pdf
- 12. , “A multi-modal in-the-wild benchmark of deepfakes circulated in 2024,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.04364v4, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.04364
- 13. , “Social media, mental health and body image,” 2025. [Online]. Available: https://news.ua.edu/2025/03/social-media-mental-health-and-body-image/