Irresponsibility Killed the Cat: Software Accountability Concerns

As society becomes ever more digital, the lack of accountability by software companies has spread in the industry and worsened the experience of using software applications for many users worldwide. This lack of accountability occurs when companies do not take responsibility for issues that users face, do not explain decisions they make regarding the operation of their applications, or make decisions that affect the user experience by implementing unwanted/harmful features or removing useful ones. Lack of accountability can harm users and reduce software quality to the point of creating useless or undesired applications. Despite this, there is very little research on accountability concerns and the use of automated approaches to gather and analyze them. To address this gap, we analyze posts in 10 software-focused communities on Reddit and identify accountability concerns and the reasons users voice them. We use manual analysis, machine learning, topic modeling, and time series analysis as part of our approach. Our best-performing model identified 2,217 posts (out of 8,350) containing an accountability concern. Moreover, we found five major accountability themes, including control of user-generated content, unjustified or false-accusation-based loss of access to accounts, payment issues, and other technical problems. Our work highlights the importance of having a space for users to voice their concerns. Software companies and development teams may use our methodology and findings to develop software that remains valuable and relevant to its users over time.