UnBias: Emancipating Users Against Algorithmic Biases for a Trusted Digital Economy

与公众舆论相反，年轻人关心他们的个人数据，希望数字世界更加透明，一个他们可以信任的数字世界。例如，对于亚马逊如何能够定制广告并推荐潜在在线客户真正感兴趣的产品，或者Facebook如何决定Facebook用户可能更倾向于阅读哪些新闻，我们知之甚少。所有支持这种信息和产品过滤的机制都是模糊的，互联网用户希望了解更多，比如他们的行为中可能存在的偏见，更重要的是，他们希望对这些推荐系统有一些控制。该项目旨在与年轻人密切合作，进一步了解“数字原住民”在与此类系统交互时对算法偏见的意识、态度以及主要关注点和建议。这些信息将帮助我们更好地了解年轻人与这些系统互动的方式，并确定由青年主导的解决方案，以教授对数字信息系统的批判性思维。我们将采用不同的参与工具和方法，包括焦点小组、研讨会和青年“评审团”，以促进讨论、反思和更深入地了解青年的在线行为和青年主导的软件解决方案。与这个项目相关的是与年轻人或非专家以及专家一起开发“更公平”的算法。为此，我们打算举办一系列黑客马拉松或研讨会，在这些研讨会上，专业程序员和年轻人将共同努力，开发和评估更公平的新算法，这些算法将产生更透明、更少令人毛骨悚然的输出。我们还将运行一个“伦理图标”；一种创新的方法，科学家和伦理学家一起工作，产生合乎道德的算法设计。在此过程中，该项目将能够确定一系列原则，这些原则将有助于开发一个平台，使用户能够更好地控制现有的在线过滤系统。换句话说，该项目将为公民提供技能和工具，以更好地判断何时以及在多大程度上信任他们所获得的信息，了解算法从用户个人数据创建的数字身份，以及保护用户的隐私和在线安全。该项目将提供政策建议、道德准则和与年轻人和其他利益相关者共同制作的“公平工具包”，其中将包括共同设计的教育材料和资源，以支持年轻人了解网络环境，并提高在线提供商对年轻互联网用户的关切和权利的认识。这个项目与年轻人和整个社会息息相关，以确保信任和透明度不会从互联网中消失。研究结果将广泛传播给各种受众，从同行评议的学术期刊到感兴趣的社区团体，如中学和青年俱乐部。

Contrary to public opinion, young people care about their personal data and want a digital world more transparent, a digital world they can trust. For example, little is known about how Amazon is able to tailor advertisements and recommend products that are actually interesting for potential online customers, or how Facebook decides which news Facebook users may be more inclined to read. All the mechanisms that support this filtering of information and products is obscure and internet users would like to know more about it, such as possible bias in their behaviour and, more importantly, have some control over these recommender systems.This project aims to closely work with young people to further understand how aware 'digital natives' are about algorithm bias, their attitudes and main concerns and recommendations when interacting with such systems. This information will help us to better understand the way young people interact with such systems and identify youth-led solutions for teaching critical thinking toward digital information systems. We will apply different engagement tools and methodologies including focus groups, workshops and youth 'juries' to facilitate discussion, reflection and a deeper understanding of youth online behaviour and youth-lead software solutions.Relevant for this project is the development of 'fairer' algorithms with young people or non-experts as well as with experts. To do that, we intend to run a series of hackathons or workshops in which expert programmers and young people will work together to produce and evaluate new fairer algorithms that will produce more transparent and less creepy outputs. We will also run an 'ethicon'; an innovative approach in which scientists and ethicists work together to produce ethically justifiable algorithm design. During this process the project will be able to identify a series of principles that will contribute to the development of a platform that will allow users to have more control over the existing online filtering systems. In other words, this project will provide citizens with the skills and tools to better judge when and how much to trust the information they are given, understand the digital identity that algorithms create from user's personal data as well as protecting the users' privacy and online security.This project will provide policy recommendations, ethical guidelines and a 'fairness toolkit' co-produced with young people and other stakeholders that will include educational materials and resources co-designed to support youth understanding about online environments as well as raise awareness among online providers about the concerns and rights of young internet users. This project is relevant for young people as well as society as a whole to ensure trust and transparency are not missing from the internet. The results will be widely disseminated to a variety of audiences ranging from academic peer-review journals to community groups of interest such as secondary schools and youth clubs.