# Bridging Systems: Open Problems for Countering Destructive Divisiveness across Ranking, Recommenders, and Governance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.09976 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09976/

## Key facts

- Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jan 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Simulating Social Media Using Large Language Models to Evaluate Alternative News Feed Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05984/) (2023)
- [What are human values, and how do we align AI to them?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10636/) (2024)
- [Embedding Democratic Values into Social Media AIs via Societal Objective Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13912/) (2023)
- [C3AI: Crafting and Evaluating Constitutions for Constitutional AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.15861/) (2025)
- [AI and the Future of Digital Public Squares](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09988/) (2024)
- [Structural Group Unfairness: Measurement and Mitigation by means of the Effective Resistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03223/) (2023)
- [Recommender Systems for Good (RS4Good): Survey of Use Cases and a Call to Action for Research that Matters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16645/) (2024)
- [Re-ranking Using Large Language Models for Mitigating Exposure to Harmful Content on Social Media Platforms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13977/) (2025)
- [Representative Ranking for Deliberation in the Public Sphere](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18962/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models, and LLM-Based Agents, Should Be Used to Enhance the Digital Public Sphere](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12123/) (2024)
- [Human Preferences for Constructive Interactions in Language Model Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16480/) (2025)
- [Finding Common Ground in a Sea of Alternatives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16751/) (2026)
- [Truth with a Twist: The Rhetoric of Persuasion in Professional vs. Community-Authored Fact-Checks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.14105/) (2026)
- [AI and Collective Decisions: Strengthening Legitimacy and Losers' Consent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05368/) (2026)
- [Visualizing "We the People": Bridging the Perception Gap through Pluralistic Data Storytelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.24635/) (2026)
- [Gaming Consensus: Coordinated Manipulation in Crowdsourced Fact-Checking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.01824/) (2026)
- [Free Speech and Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.28973/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Divisiveness appears to be increasing in much of the world, leading to concern about political violence and a decreasing capacity to collaboratively address large-scale societal challenges. In this working paper we aim to articulate an interdisciplinary research and practice area focused on what we call bridging systems: systems which increase mutual understanding and trust across divides, creating space for productive conflict, deliberation, or cooperation. We give examples of bridging systems across three domains: recommender systems on social media, collective response systems, and human-facilitated group deliberation. We argue that these examples can be more meaningfully understood as processes for attention-allocation (as opposed to "content distribution" or "amplification") and develop a corresponding framework to explore similarities - and opportunities for bridging - across these seemingly disparate domains. We focus particularly on the potential of bridging-based ranking to bring the benefits of offline bridging into spaces which are already governed by algorithms. Throughout, we suggest research directions that could improve our capacity to incorporate bridging into a world increasingly mediated by algorithms and artificial intelligence.