“I'm Constantly in This Dilemma”: How Migrant Technology Professionals Perceive Social Media Recommendation Algorithms

Abstract

Migrants experience unique needs and use social media, in part, to address them. While prior work has primarily focused on migrant populations who are vulnerable socio-economically and legally, less is known about how highly educated migrant populations use social media. Additionally, a growing body of work focuses on algorithmic perceptions and resistance, primarily from laypersons' perspectives rather than people with high degrees of algorithmic literacy. To address these gaps, we draw from interviews with 20 Chinese-born migrant technology professionals. We found that social media played an integral role in helping participants meet their unique needs but that participants perceived social media algorithms to negatively shape the content they consumed, which ultimately influenced their mobility-related aspirations and goals. We discuss how findings challenge the promise of algorithmic literacy and contribute to a human-centered conceptualization of algorithmic mobility as socially and algorithmically produced motion that concerns the movement of physical bodies and interactions as well as associated digital movement. Specifically, we introduce a fourth dimension of algorithmic mobility: algorithmically curated content on social media and elsewhere based on facets of users' identities directly influences users' mobility-related aspirations and goals, such as how, when, and where they go. Finally, we call for transnational policy interventions related to algorithms and highlight design considerations around content moderation, algorithmic user-control, and contestability.