{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/125687"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/125687","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Building better settings for online content curation","abstract":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2026-08-01","abstract_html":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2026-08-01","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Hsu, Silas"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Karahalios, Karrie","Wang, Yang","Sandvig, Christian","Cobb, Camille","Saha, Koustuv"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-07-03","date_published":"2024-07-03","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:02Z","subjects":["Autonomy","Agency","Control","User Interface","Human-computer Interaction","Advertising","Choice"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2024 Silas Hsu"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125687","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Karahalios, Karrie","Wang, Yang","Sandvig, Christian","Cobb, Camille","Saha, Koustuv"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Hsu, Silas"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2024-07-03","2024-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Autonomy","Agency","Control","User Interface","Human-computer Interaction","Advertising","Choice"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2024 Silas Hsu"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125687"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2026-08-01","The student, Silas Hsu, accepted the attached license on 2024-07-03 at 10:21.","The student, Silas Hsu, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2024-07-03 at 10:32.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2024-07-03 at 13:33.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #20927 on 2025-02-04 at 21:16:15","Content curation algorithms today play a large role in deciding what news, social media posts, recommendations, and ads we see online. Major platforms’ designs and deployments of these algorithms, however, have eroded users’ autonomy – their ability to govern for themselves how they want to live their lives. The algorithms often act against user wishes, and promote content that invites user engagement as opposed to high-quality content. Users experience algorithm-promoted misinformation and algorithm-induced filter bubbles. The system of targeted advertising that platforms rely on for profits facilitates mass manipulation. And platforms and their algorithms effectively impose content curation decisions on their users. To give users autonomy, we must empower users to align content curation systems with their values. Control settings – user interface widgets that invite users to adjust and steer content curation algorithms – promise to do just that. But good design of settings remains a challenge. This thesis contributes guidelines and methodology for making more usable and useful settings. First, I present ways that we can make settings easier for users to find and understand. Second, I demonstrate that users’ expectations towards a setting increased their satisfaction towards feed content. Lastly, I show that users don’t want direct control over everything, and suggest factors that increase the likelihood that users will want direct control. These findings help build a framework that can generate design guidelines for content curation settings, with which regulators can eventually take action to ensure platforms deploy content curation systems that support user autonomy."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Building better settings for online content curation"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Karahalios, Karrie","Wang, Yang","Sandvig, Christian","Cobb, Camille","Saha, Koustuv"],"dc:creator":["Hsu, Silas"],"dc:date":["2024-07-03","2024-08"],"dc:description":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2026-08-01","The student, Silas Hsu, accepted the attached license on 2024-07-03 at 10:21.","The student, Silas Hsu, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2024-07-03 at 10:32.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2024-07-03 at 13:33.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #20927 on 2025-02-04 at 21:16:15","Content curation algorithms today play a large role in deciding what news, social media posts, recommendations, and ads we see online. Major platforms’ designs and deployments of these algorithms, however, have eroded users’ autonomy – their ability to govern for themselves how they want to live their lives. The algorithms often act against user wishes, and promote content that invites user engagement as opposed to high-quality content. Users experience algorithm-promoted misinformation and algorithm-induced filter bubbles. The system of targeted advertising that platforms rely on for profits facilitates mass manipulation. And platforms and their algorithms effectively impose content curation decisions on their users. To give users autonomy, we must empower users to align content curation systems with their values. Control settings – user interface widgets that invite users to adjust and steer content curation algorithms – promise to do just that. But good design of settings remains a challenge. This thesis contributes guidelines and methodology for making more usable and useful settings. First, I present ways that we can make settings easier for users to find and understand. Second, I demonstrate that users’ expectations towards a setting increased their satisfaction towards feed content. Lastly, I show that users don’t want direct control over everything, and suggest factors that increase the likelihood that users will want direct control. These findings help build a framework that can generate design guidelines for content curation settings, with which regulators can eventually take action to ensure platforms deploy content curation systems that support user autonomy."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125687"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2024 Silas Hsu"],"dc:subject":["Autonomy","Agency","Control","User Interface","Human-computer Interaction","Advertising","Choice"],"dc:title":["Building better settings for online content curation"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Computer Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:02Z"}