AI embedded bias on social platforms

Gorenc, Nina (author)

AI-based social platforms pervade our lives, filter the information we receive and influence our choices. Despite their significant role, the inner workings of these AI systems remain largely opaque to most users. We seem to implicitly trust the platforms and share personal information without much restraint, mistakenly viewing algorithms as neutral mathematical entities, and overlooking the potential harms AI systems can cause to individuals and the society. Young people, as the primary users of these platforms, believe their familiarity with the platforms is equivalent to their understanding of AI, whereas their behaviour often reveals the opposite. The present article challenges the perceived objectivity of algorithm-based AI systems on social platforms and probes into students’ ability to recognize AI embedded biases and to understand their impact on social learning. The study reviews relevant literature and analyses survey data gathered from the students of social sciences at the University of Ljubljana and Sapienza, the University of Rome. Our goal is to place the debate on AI in a broader contextual landscape of our daily life, and to emphasize the importance of recognizing the hidden biases of AI and actively working to mitigate them by making informed decisions and adjusting our behaviour.

• Language: English
• Keywords: AI bias, social platforms, algorithm, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, AI
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 317-336
• Numbering: Vol. 35, no. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179398
• UDC: 004.8:077.5
• ISSN on article: 0390-6701
• DOI: 10.1080/03906701.2025.2489056
• COBISS.SI-ID: 268306435
• Publication date in RUL: 12.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Revue internationale de sociologie = International review of sociology
• Shortened title: Rev. int. sociol.
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Universita degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza
• ISSN: 0390-6701
• COBISS.SI-ID: 26310912

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: umetna inteligenca, družbeni mediji