In the digital realm where algorithms reign supreme, Alex Krause Matlack, DBA, and Bryan Boots, Ph.D., from the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management aim to create a tool that disrupts the social media landscape. The Internet Society Foundation renewed their grant in Fall 2025 and more than doubled the funding from $200,000 to $409,000.
Social media is a double-edged sword. It has the power to bring people together and the power to keep people together in echo chambers. These digital environments expose users to information that reinforces their pre-existing views, effectively trapping people in an algorithmic cycle that filters out any opposing information.
“We're doing this to ensure that we ‘build the right tool’, not just ‘build the tool right.’”
Thanks to Matlack, Boots and their collaborators, this problem may have a solution.
“We aim to create a free, open-source tool that will empower everyday users of social media to increase the diversity of information and posts in their social media feed,” Boots said during the research phase of Grant 1. “We're doing this to ensure that we ‘build the right tool,’ not just ‘build the tool right.’”
Matlack and Boots were also awarded additional funding from the Bloch School to participate in the faculty exchange program between UMKC and the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa. This opportunity allowed them to collaborate with Oghenerhe G. Salubi from the Department of Library and Information Science at UWC.
“This has allowed us to broaden our research to better understand how online social network usage is in Africa, particularly, South Africa,” Matlack said.
Through Grant 1, Matlack and Boots developed an open-source tool that allows users to adjust the diversity of content in their social media feeds.
“We offered a definition of algorithmic literacy as the ability to recognize, reason, respond and retain when navigating an algorithmically driven system,” Matlack said. “Through these dimensions, users can develop an understanding for how and why content is delivered to them, how to respond to that content and how to build healthy online habits.”
This work produced several working papers now under review and drove policy wins in Australia and the United Kingdom, where legislators cited their research in discussions.
In 2024, the Australian government enacted legislation prohibiting social media accounts for anyone under 16, citing research on the harms of online platforms; Matlack and Boots contributed to this effort with a supporting brief. In early 2025, their team submitted evidence to the UK Parliament on social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms, and a House of Commons report later referenced that evidence.
Matlack and Boots have expanded their research in Grant 2 to explore how users of social media and AI can have more thoughtful experiences online, with a continued focus on giving users greater agency.
“This is urgent work as our lives continue to be more online,” Matlack said. “We’re concerned about the ever-present and increasing power imbalance between technology companies and everyday Internet users. As social media and AI companies continue to pursue more of our attention, we believe users should be empowered to use the Internet in healthier ways. We hope our research gives Internet users a greater capability to do so.”
Grant 2 also expands into social psychology, examining how users’ thoughts, emotions and behaviors interact in online environments. With this phase, they aim to develop three new tools, conduct further research and provide guidance to policymakers and educators, ultimately helping users cultivate healthier, more intentional, and more empowered online experiences.
“We believe the continuation of our grant funding at a larger amount reflects the trust the Internet Society Foundation has in our work and our team,” Boots said. “We’re so honored to be a part of their research grant portfolio and grateful for their continued support so that we can help with their mission to create a more secure and trustworthy Internet for all.”
The Internet Society Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation with a mission to promote the development and accessibility of the internet globally by funding initiatives with a similar focus.
This article first published in Spring 2024 and updated in December 2025 to reflect the grant's renewal and increased funding.