Samuel Woolley, Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar and Assistant Professor in the Schools of Journalism and Information, made several comments for an article titled “BBC tries to understand politics by creating fake Americans” at Spectrum News. A BBC news reporter created fake social media accounts of 5 Americans to track and better understand how information, and particularly disinformation, spreads as well as its impact on American politics. Professor Woolley argues that “The BBC experiment can be valuable, but only shows part of how algorithms work, a mystery that largely evades people outside of the tech companies.”

“Algorithms also take cues from comments that people make on social media or in their interactions with friends — both things that BBC’s fake Americans don’t do,” he said. If you would like to read more about Professor Woolley’s criticisms and the implementation of the experiment, the article can be found here.