April 17, 2026
Assistant Professor Siqi Wu will present his paper "Auditing Algorithmic Personalization in TikTok Comment Sections" with CCMC Student Fellow Yueru Yan at the 20th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2026) taking place from May 27th through 29th in Los Angeles, California.
In this project, Yan and Wu examine algorithmic personalization in TikTok comment sections, a central yet understudied component of the platform’s interaction system. Using sock-puppet audit accounts that simulate users with different political leanings, they show that comments presented to different users are ranked differently. These findings provide empirical evidence of personalized content curation in comment spaces and highlight its implications for online discourse.
Professor Wu's research lies at the intersection of computational social science, social computing, and human–computer interaction. He researches human behavior online by analyzing large-scale digital trace data, with a focus on how platform design and algorithms shape user experiences. His research background is international and highly interdisciplinary. He earned an undergraduate degree in electronic engineering in China, a master's in information and a Ph.D. in computer science in Australia, and he was a postdoctoral researcher in information at the University of Michigan.
"Across these experiences," he says, "I have developed a sustained interest in understanding human behavior in online environments—spaces that are fundamentally shaped by computational systems and now, increasingly, by artificial intelligence." Wu is currently in his second year as an assistant professor in the Department of Information and Library Science.
In his free time, Wu is a distance runner. He has completed over 100 ultramarathons (races longer than 26.2 miles) and, since moving to Bloomington, has competed in (and won) the Hoosier Half Marathon.