The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted American life in many ways and will certainly also impact the 2020 election. In fact, in order to socially distance and avoid unnecessary contact with others, record-shattering numbers of Americans may vote absentee. The specter of an election relying heavily on absentee voting has brought with it many misconceptions, myths […]
With November’s elections looming, and as fraught questions about “truth,” “fact,” and “accuracy” are debated, the Center for Brooklyn History and the Social Science Research Council turn to the role authenticity plays as it relates to trust in politicians and institutions. Does an aura of authenticity enable misinformation? Are lies more palatable when generated by an ‘authentic’ […]
Imagine living in a society in which most of the land and buildings available for meeting and working were owned by a few for-profit corporations. Churches, governments, groups of friends, schools, nonprofits, and grassroots social movements would each have to reserve space on — or have a key to — a privately-owned facility, often on […]
On Wednesday, October 28th at 6:00pm ET, join us for the 30th annual Theodore H. White Lecture on Press and Politics, delivered by Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, with Shorenstein Center Director Nancy Gibbs moderating. As the 2020 election quickly approaches, are there similarities to 2016 or is this a continuation of an unprecedented cycle in political history? How has the […]
The 2016 US election made it clear that social media companies play a profound role in how voters are informed and influenced. What role should social media companies be playing in the upcoming US election? Join us for a timely and important discussion with two leading experts and YOUR questions in this highly-interaction livestream conversation. […]
The 2020 general election is unlike any other. Understanding how campuses can facilitate respectful and productive dialogue across political differences will be key during this tense time, but doing so virtually presents additional challenges. What can faculty, administrators, and staff do now to prepare for the difficult dialogues that lie ahead? Join Jonathan Friedman, director […]
Journalists and pundits have described political polarization as one of the foremost problems of our time. It has been ascribed to trends such as changing party compositions, racial and ethnic divisions, and the rise of partisan cable news. This seminar will present new research on social media and political polarization in both the United States […]
Imagine living in a society in which most of the land and buildings available for meeting and working were owned by a few for-profit corporations. Churches, governments, groups of friends, schools, nonprofits, and grassroots social movements would each have to reserve space on — or have a key to — a privately-owned facility, often on […]
Imagine living in a society in which most of the land and buildings available for meeting and working were owned by a few for-profit corporations. Churches, governments, groups of friends, schools, nonprofits, and grassroots social movements would each have to reserve space on — or have a key to — a privately-owned facility, often on […]
The Oxford Internet Institute hosts Lisa Nakamura, lisanakamura.net, Director, Digital Studies Institute, Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor, Department of American Culture, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Professor Nakamura is the founding Director of the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan, and a writer focusing on digital media, race, and gender. We are living […]
On November 10, Ronald J. Deibert, renowned technology and security expert, will discuss the disturbing influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity. In his new book ‘Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society’, Deibert will explore how the expansion of society towards a system of surveillance capitalism has […]
Hate and harassment have proliferated online in recent years, posing serious threats to college and university faculty. Women, BIPOC, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community continue to be disproportionately targeted and intimidated, posing a threat to the equitable exchange of ideas in the public sphere. Many faculty have been left to fend for themselves, with […]
From scholarly article to practical guides, from textbooks to media, from weighty tomes to tweets, researchers and academic writers have many options today. While academic writers still write books and articles, forms and formats are changing. Electronic journals can include links to media, and increasingly open access journals make it easier to reach academics, professionals, […]
In many emerging economies, a significant mobile gender gap persists—in which women not only have less access to mobile internet and mobile money, but continue to lag in mobile phone ownership. Drawing on one of the first large-scale experimental studies of mobile phone ownership among women, we analyze the effects of reducing this gender gap. […]
Do digital platforms function as stealth media, a system that enables the deliberate operations of undisclosed political campaigns’ imperceptible targeting and furtive messaging? This talk presents empirical research on covert digital political campaigns sponsored by unidentifiable, untraceable groups. By utilizing a user-based, real-time ad tracking tool and “reverse engineering” techniques, independent from tech platforms, Kim’s […]
Following the publication of Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives, the Oxford Internet Institute is hosting a discussion among leading experts to reflect on the enduring lessons for technological governance following from the pandemic. Edited by Linnet Taylor, Gargi Sharma, Aaron Martin and Shazade Jameson, Data Justice and COVID-19 is a unique collection of 38 […]
Since 2014 there have been at least 74 nation-state led online influence campaigns targeting other countries through deceptive social media, with 21 of those in 2019 alone. How are such foreign influence efforts organized, what sets their content apart from legitimate social media activity, and what have we learned about their potential impact? Much as […]
Event Listing Header Algorithms touch each and every aspect of modern democratic life. While technology has created some ease, there has also been friction and harms, often in discrete or invisible ways and most disproportionately impacted women and communities of color. Our hyper digital lives during this pandemic has only reinforced the urgency for algorithmic […]
Once relegated to the fringes of only the most paranoid online communities, today the QAnon conspiracy theory has followers and supporters on an international scale, going so far as to be endorsed by a number of political candidates and one elected member of Congress. The fanatical far-right theory combines allegations of child sex-trafficking by Satan-worshipping […]
Once relegated to the fringes of only the most paranoid online communities, today the QAnon conspiracy theory has followers and supporters on an international scale, going so far as to be endorsed by a number of political candidates and one elected member of Congress. The fanatical far-right theory combines allegations of child sex-trafficking by Satan-worshipping […]
CEREN BUDAK, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SCHOOL OF INFORMATION The spread of political misinformation threatens the health of our democracies and weakens the legitimacy and public trust in the established political and media institutions. In this talk I will examine the spread of this threat, focusing primarily on the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections […]
Join us for a virtual discussion exploring how to talk to friends and family about politics, misinformation, and what can be those “tough conversations” around differences of opinion that emerge during elections. The discussion will bring together experts in human psychology, technology, and media to consider how media coverage framed issues for voters this election […]
This year, with the stakes higher than ever, the candidates squared off in one vice presidential and two presidential debates. The events generated fireworks and controversy, but also memorable exchanges and substantive discussion. Still, some argue these debates are built on a format whose time has passed. The Commission on Presidential Debates defends these showdowns […]
Event featured image, but exclude link Event content Please join us for “What do the data tell us about election 2020?” a panel that will feature: Erika Franklin Fowler (Wesleyan University), Jill Lepore (Harvard University), Solomon Messing (ACRONYM), and Kate Starbird (University of Washington). Each panelist will speak about their research into topics such as […]
The internet is now the most common source of political news for almost half of Americans, and social media is now the primary source of news for those under 30. Yet today’s youth have little capacity to evaluate the credibility of digital sources, with colleges across the country often relying on severely outdated guidelines supporting […]
Misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic continues to create confusion and contention along scientific and political lines. In this conversation, Berkeley faculty will help us understand the nature of misinformation in order to assess, evaluate and engage more effectively with the information resources we consult. They will discuss some of the reasons for the rapid spread […]
The 2020 election may be over, but the debate over the role of technology in the election has only just begun. The pervasiveness of voting-related disinformation before and after the election, alongside new platform policies to combat it, has brought to the fore, as in 2016, questions about how social media and the online information […]
Joining government brings incredible opportunities to solve hard problems, fix under-resourced systems, and help people at a scale no other sector can. It’s incredibly rewarding work, but also incredibly challenging. The landscape is different. The rules are, too. As new waves of technologists raise their hands to consider government service, we’ll unpack some of those […]
Please join us for “What do the data tell us about election 2020?” a panel that will feature: Erika Franklin Fowler (Wesleyan University), Jill Lepore (Harvard University), Solomon Messing (ACRONYM), and Kate Starbird (University of Washington). Each panelist will speak about their research into topics such as the twentieth-century origins of election-related data science, the […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has tested our modern public health infrastructure like never before. Why have some nations successfully contained the virus, while others have failed? How can we use these insights to better prepare for and prevent future pandemics? On January 12-13, 2021, join health, science, and policy leaders at the Futures Forum on Preparedness […]
Society has been transformed by a technology revolution and its 24/7 influence on so many aspects of our reality. The COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide movement for racial justice have made it even clearer how essential these tools are for our daily lives. Silicon Valley has clearly followed through on its promise to change the […]
Trump supporters’ storming of the Capitol, as Trump refused to concede his loss in the 2020 presidential election, underscored the significant challenges confronting U.S. democracy. The presence of armed, violent vigilante groups roaming city streets, state capitals and university campuses, with the president’s blessing, affects every American, including and beyond those who are directly targeted […]
The recent decision by Big Tech to ban prominent politicians, including President Donald Trump, and enforce strict content moderation against hate speech, mis/disinformation, and violence is a new precedent that could prove consequential for the future of online speech—and for the future of democracy. Join Belfer Center’s Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project as it […]
After a mob stormed the Capitol, major technology platforms acted nearly in unison – some said belatedly, others tyrannically – to “deplatform” President Trump and many other right-wing users of their services. How did we arrive at this unprecedented action, what’s at stake for our democracy, and what does this mean for the future? On […]
Social media and digital technologies have come under fire for their contribution to the development of the groups that ultimately stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Following the insurrection attempt, Facebook, Twitter, Google and other major platforms have banned or suspended President Trump’s accounts. Google and Apple removed Parler from their app stores, while […]
Join us for a discussion on how ethnographic theory and ethnographic practice are incorporated in civic technology projects in the US. A small panel will discuss the ways that qualitative research, political power and technology meet in government internet projects. Dr Andrew Schrock, OII alum and author of “Civic Tech: Making Technology Work for People”, […]
The Coronavirus pandemic is on the verge of a turning point, as the rollout of vaccination programs worldwide brings hope that the disease may finally start to recede. However, public confidence in vaccine programmes cannot be taken for granted: and in many countries the number of people willing to take a vaccine is lower than […]
Dr. Apryl A. Williams and Dr. Allissa V. Richardson address the long-standing history of White vigilante-style surveillance of Black people in public spaces, exploring the role of White women in extending the power of the state to surveil and regulate the movement of Black people in public – tying in Karen actors with historical examples such as Emmitt […]
Esteemed faculty from five disciplines at Penn will come together to unpack the myriad policies, messages, and conditions that led to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as explore how we move forward as a country. This 90-minute panel discussion — moderated by Dean Erika James of the Wharton School with a […]
Join the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center and Digital Forensic Research Lab on Wednesday, February 3, at 12:00 p.m. ET for a special “GeoTech Hour” on the role that social media platforms play in enabling modern mis- and disinformation. In an age of hyper-connectivity and expansive digitization, social platforms play an outsized role in public life, serving as a sort of infrastructure […]
Join Joan Donovan, PhD for a Big, If True Webinar on community understandings of networked hate groups and conspiracies with guests Brandi Collins-Dexter, Molly Conger, Emily Gorcenski, Kathleen Belew, PhD, and Whitney Phillips, PhD. Our panelists will discuss: how can journalists contextualize hate movements for a broader public without amplifying their agendas? How can civil […]
In the wake of the lies told at the January 6 rally that resulted in the assault on our nation’s Capitol building, Ian Rosenberg’s new book “The Fight for Free Speech” provides an urgent perspective on the limits and protections of the First Amendment. From taking a knee to Nazi protests, from MAGA rallies to […]
Corporations and governments alike continue to struggle with technology policy, especially under the strain of a global pandemic which struck at a moment when the Internet is mature enough to alleviate many of COVID’s harms while also facing novel geopolitical challenges to its design and use. These turbulences have not just tested every facet of […]
This talk discusses the “secondary contagion” of racism (Chen et al 2020) and other forms of social stigmatization unleashed by the coronavirus outbreak in global context. I begin with a critique of how cultural biases in journalistic reporting and official speech have often reinforced racial prejudices and hierarchies and contributed to the stigmatization and shaming […]
Speaker: Joan Donovan Conspiracy theories and other false claims have always been part of our discourse, even (and perhaps especially) our politics. But modern technologies seem to have changed the scale of the problem, with profound implications for our culture and for democracy. This series focuses on the role of technology in promoting mis- and […]
Ever wondered how the industry got to where it is today? The answer likely lies in tech. Overview: At this exclusive panel event, we host thought-leaders from a specific industry — such as finance, food, or art — to explore new intersections between their field and technology. Together, we discuss how they’ve been impacted by […]
In this presentation, digital media are analyzed as a key battlefield in the intense cultural and political conflict between feminists and misogynists that has been playing out in South Korea since 2013. Drawing on textual, discursive, and institutional analyses of digital media platforms and interviews with feminist activists, Kim shows how new modes of feminist […]
In barely a year, Covid-19 has transformed from a localized outbreak to a global pandemic and, in the process, dramatically altered the existence of individuals, nations and the international community. As the world has progressed through the phases of the pandemic, it is currently faced with the paradox of significant increases in cases of and […]
It feels like a precursor to a bad joke: What do foreign agents, white supremacists, conspiracists, snake oil salesmen, political operatives, white academics, and a disgruntled bunch of zoomers have in common? The groups have collided in a centrifuge of chaos online, where the tactics they use to hide their identities and manipulate audiences are […]
PARTICIPATION IN THIS EVENT IS BY INVITATION ONLY. Governments face a continuing challenge in directly countering false information both online and off. Effective communication is a key tool in the government’s toolkit, and yet it remains a struggle for many countries. Governments have not historically been good story tellers, as official messaging focusses more on […]
Choose your hours, choose your work, be your own boss, control your own income. Welcome to the sharing economy, a nebulous collection of online platforms and apps that promise to transcend capitalism. Supporters argue the gig economy will reverse economic inequality, enhance worker rights, provide an alternative to unemployment, and bring entrepreneurship to the masses. […]
Please join us on Wednesday March 3, 2021 from 3:00-4:30 pm EST (12:00-1:30 PST) for The Long Fuse: Misinformation in the 2020 Election, the public launch of a comprehensive report tracking mis- and disinformation in the 2020 election cycle. The report was produced by the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a coalition of research institutions that worked together to detect and mitigate viral misinformation and to support the real-time information exchange between the research community, election officials, government […]
Join PEN America for an engaging session on the First Amendment, misinformation, and free speech in the digital age. The January 6 insurrection has prompted many questions about free speech, the effect of online misinformation, and how society should approach defending against the harmful results of the proliferation of false content online without infringing upon […]
There are competing accounts for the partisan divisions occurring throughout American life. One is that they are genuine divides due to a strengthened sense of partisan identity. The other is that they reflect partisan cheerleading—insincere support for the “home team” when there is little cost to doing so. We assess the applicability of these claims […]
In her message for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet reminded us that ‘Words have consequences.’ Indeed she remarked that ‘conspiracy theorists increasingly link extreme political ideologies and antisemitic delusions,’ recalled the responsibilities of governments and digital platforms and stressed that we need to push back against lies, ensure that […]
The United States and European Union have each taken big steps forward on cybersecurity policy in recent months: Europe has a new cybersecurity strategy, and a defense bill passed by the U.S. Congress in December implements many recommendations of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. How do these new and emerging policies overlap? Where do they diverge? […]
Moderated by Professor Janet Steele, this SMPA discussion will look at the striking history of concerns about fake news, propaganda, and the fear of the mob in the US., as described in a new book by Professor Lee Huebner: The Fake News Panic of a Century Ago: The Discovery of Propaganda and the Coercion of Consent. Just as the term “fake news” has […]
Join us for a conversation with Justin Hendrix, Marietje Schaake, Jason Kint and Yael Eisenstat. As part of our Betalab: Fix The Internet program, we’re excited to host a timely new series of events in which we’ll tackle questions surrounding technology and democracy. For our third event, on March 5th at 1pm ET, we’ll […]
The students and early career data professionals of today are the data curators and experts of tomorrow. It’s important that they have the right tools and knowledge so that their work — and the associated data — is as good and impactful as possible. In this discussion our experts will talk about why it’s important […]
The Oxford Internet Institute welcomes Katherine Maher, CEO and Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, hosted by Professor Philip Howard, Director of the OII. Access to knowledge can empower communities and lift up societies. During this event, we’ll discuss Wikipedia as one of many models for sharing free knowledge with the world, and explore a framework for […]
Join us for a conversation with Cecilia Muñoz and Shorenstein Center Fellow Kathy Pham to discuss Cecilia’s recent book More than Ready: Be Strong and Be You…and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise. Women of color today are contributing to an unprecedented wave of “firsts”-whether they are the first in a family to attend […]
We are still in the early days of the Internet, but there is a growing sense that it’s creating more problems than it’s solving. This wasn’t always the case. There was a time when we shared an overriding optimism in the Internet’s capacity to make the world a better place. Creator platforms and social media […]
Data & Society and the Ada Lovelace Institute will co-host a discussion about the next frontier of COVID-19 roll-outs: vaccine passports. To facilitate a global understanding of possible vulnerabilities that will arise from vaccine passport adoption, we are bringing together Data & Society Researcher, Ranjit Singh, public health ethicist, Amy Fairchild, and Imogen Parker, Head of Policy at Ada Lovelace Institute, […]
In the first pandemic of the datafied society, the disempowered were denied a voice in the heavily quantified mainstream narrative. The event invites participants to explore the pandemic from the perspective of communities and individuals at the margins in the Global South and beyond. It introduces the editorial project of the same title.
As machine learning applications move into the mainstream, a new era of cyber-threat is emerging – one that uses offensive AI to supercharge attack campaigns. Offensive AI allows attackers to automate reconnaissance, craft tailored impersonation attacks, and even self-propagate to avoid detection. Security teams can prepare for this eventuality by turning to defensive AI to […]
If the speed that the world is changing makes you want to crawl into a cave, if you fret over the impact of technology, the fracturing of democratic institutions, the future of humanity, then Kevin Roose and Ethan Zuckerman have ideas you want to hear. Roose, technology columnist for the New York Times, has a […]
If the speed that the world is changing makes you want to crawl into a cave, if you fret over the impact of technology, the fracturing of democratic institutions, the future of humanity, then Kevin Roose and Ethan Zuckerman have ideas you want to hear. Roose, technology columnist for the New York Times, has a […]
Digital inclusion is about having the right access, skills, motivation and trust to confidently go online. Today’s network infrastructure is the lifeline on which much of modern life depends. Without it, the ramifications of Covid-19 would have been far more severe. As the internet becomes a public utility that shapes our social, political, and economic […]
Event Listing Header Prof. Kate Crawford is a leading scholar who has spent the last decade studying the social and political implications of artificial intelligence. She holds the inaugural chair of AI and Justice at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, is a senior principal researcher at MSR, and an Honorary Professor at the University […]
The Edgelands Institute is an interdisciplinary pop-up institute to redraw our social contract in our era of mass-urbanization, surveillance, pandemics, and other emergencies, currently being incubated at the Berkman Klein Center. The Institute stems from the perception that the rapid deployment of surveillance technologies in cities to provide security services is reshaping how we interact […]
Increased visibility is arguably the most significant affordance of social media and a large body of scholarly work has sought to understand how individuals deal with the effects increased visibility in terms of concern for privacy as well as the ability to broadcast to wide audiences. Much of this work explores how pre-social media norms […]
Using examples of political advertising, including some of his own work in nearly 30 years of creating such content as a campaign consultant, Craig Snyder will explore the cumulative effects on the American political system, and on American society more broadly, of four standard techniques in modern American political communications: The use of half-truths in […]
The Ten Years Hence speaker series explores issues, ideas, and trends likely to affect business and society over the next decade. Students, faculty, and the community use guest speaker comments as a springboard for structured speculation about emerging issues and the next ten years.
A revealing look at how user behavior is powering deep social divisions online–and how we might yet defeat political tribalism on social media In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to […]
Part of the Speaker Series on Misinformation, co-sponsored by the NULab at Northeastern University. Dannagal G. Young (Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, 2007) is a Professor of Communication and Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware where she studies the content, audience, and effects of non-traditional political information. She has authored over […]
Panel Discussion: Media scholars and experts on how to combat the rise of hate and the disinformation that spreads it. How can we learn from lessons of the past to stop hate movements today? What role does the media play in stopping the spread of hateful ideologies? How are disinformation and media manipulation used as […]
From everyday apps to complex algorithms, technology has the potential to hide, speed, and deepen discrimination, while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to racist practices of a previous era. In this talk, Ruha Benjamin explores a range of discriminatory designs that encode inequity — what she terms the “New Jim Code.” This presentation […]
How can feminist methodologies and approaches be applied and be transformative when developing AI and ADM systems? How can AI innovation and social systems innovation be catalysed concomitantly to create a positive movement for social change larger than the sum of the data science or social science parts? How can we produce actionable research that […]
Users’ perspectives on what f*ke news and misinformation is and isn’t, who drives it, and where people say they see it are important for understanding the scale and scope of public concern, and how this corresponds with research insights and aligns with proposed responses to these problems, as well as for the credibility and even […]
In December 2020, it was first reported that SolarWinds, a major US information technology firm, experienced a massive cyberattack which affected up to 18,000 clients, including numerous US government agencies and Fortune 500 companies whose networks and data were exposed and vulnerable for months. Described by Microsoft’s president Brad Smith, one of the affected clients, […]
f–field f–eyebrow f–field f–page-title cc–component-container cc–intro Artificial Intelligence and autonomous systems are poised to transform the practice of espionage. This “revolution in intelligence affairs” will lead to machines serving as more than just tools for collection and analysis, but as intelligence consumers, decision-makers, and targets of intelligence operations. Former National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Chief Technology Officer […]
This 1 hour online panel discussion to mark the 20th Anniversary of the OII brings together a unique gathering of the current and former Directors of the OII. Given their experience in leading the helm of the Institute they will reflect on what the OII has achieved and what pressing technology challenges this community can […]
Can humanitarian actors play a more intentional role in designing just and equitable digital futures? Could we, in fact, design worlds that don’t imagine some figures, particularly populations that we serve in the global south, to merely be passive beneficiaries and outside of the borders of expertise we seek? Instead of looking at digital governance […]
Deen Freelon is an associate professor in the School of Media and Journalism. His research covers two major areas of scholarship: 1) political expression through digital media and 2) data science and computational methods for analyzing large digital datasets. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 journal articles, book chapters and public reports, in […]
In the wake of heightened online radicalization over the past several years, including the rise of far-right nationalism, violence, and harms to democracy globally, it is clear that technology platforms are playing an outsized role in amplifying racialized disinformation and fomenting real world consequences. As lawmakers and civil society grapple with the policy and legal […]
While the last year has seen broad-based calls for racial equity in the United States, protests often don’t always translate into policy outcomes. On Episode 41 of “The Future of Democracy,” Knight’s Evette Alexander will take a deep dive into how racial attitudes affect American political preferences with Dr. David C. Wilson, incoming dean of […]
In this seminar Dr. Krafft will report on a mixed methods study of the North American Flat Earther community, drawing on documents from two Flat Earth Society websites, three surveys, and participant observation at the 2018 Flat Earth International Conference. Across the three surveys they find that around 20-30% of respondents are at least to […]
You’ve seen it. That meme that seems just too good to be true. That outlandish story your family member prefaced with, “Can you believe he said that?” followed by a video link of unknown origin and vintage. We are in an era of misinformation — and even disinformation, when someone intentionally disseminates false or misleading […]
The trial of Derek Chauvin sparked national conversations about violent policing and racial injustice. In its wake, how should policy makers, police, and journalists respond? The New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb (Spring 2018 Shorenstein Writer in Residence) and BBC correspondent Tara McKelvey (Fall 2012 Shorenstein Fellow) — who both covered the trial from Minneapolis — will join […]
The rise of social media platforms has introduced another widespread phenomenon—the spread of misleading information. Whether introduced organically or deliberately, misinformation threatens the integrity of democratic journalism. Because misinformation has become a serious threat to governance, it requires interdisciplinary efforts and collaboration to mitigate. To this end, Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe) researches […]
A discussion exploring the critical role that grassroots organizing and field-building must play in 2021 and beyond to address mis/disinformation with a particular focus on mobilizing communities of color. This webinar will explore how grassroots groups and communities of color can shape US federal policy and hold lawmakers accountable, the importance of grassroots pressure on […]
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, part of The University of Manchester, holds the entire archive of the Manchester Guardian. In this series of events to mark our bicentenary, our panels of special guests and experts will each discuss an item from the archive, its relevance to today’s news and media, and how it […]
Event Listing Header Rights x Tech is a space is for leaders in technology, movement and philanthropy who understand the importance of hearing from practitioners and leaders who understand how tech is touching all of our lives. We host monthly forums that are focused on sourcing innovation from the innovators already among us. Our upcoming […]
Over the last few years, misinformation has dominated our digital landscape. From email to social media to “news sites,” adults are inundated with images and information that have been manipulated, taken out of context or completely fabricated! Don’t feel frustrated! Fight back! While you may not have been born a digital native, you certainly can […]
Join Bergen LEADER, Maria Deptula for a seminar on misinformation, disinformation, bias and “fake news”. Maria Deptula will help attendees uncover how we can categorize information based on its provenance, recognize our selective preferences, and learn new sources we can refer to when in doubt.
As long as politics and elections have existed, there have always been false claims and exaggerations by leaders, candidates, their backers and even commentators. But the explosion of Internet access and social media usage in recent years has turned aberrational misinformation into a global epidemic of disinformation. On the one hand, millions more people have […]
The webinar offers a nuanced look into disinformation campaigns and presents a researcher’s perspective on these phenomena. Join us for a presentation followed by a Q&A session, in which Dr. Ahmer Arif will talk about human-centered responses to disinformation that go beyond mere fact checking. In this webinar, we will discuss how our social computing […]
This discussion will explore the scope of US federal policy solutions available to mitigate the spread of mis/disinformation online. This will include a discussion of the viability of Section 230 reform and other proposed regulations and how the Biden Administration is approaching platform policy. This briefing will not only cover the scope of these issues, […]
Disinformation and misinformation have been broadly recognized among major modern threats. They affect societies and the functioning of democracies all over the world and, with the profusion of communication channels and advances in digital technology, they spread rapidly and threaten public goods, risk increased polarization in societies and limit the fundamental freedom to hold opinions […]
How is social media changing democracy? How are computer algorithms employed to tailor messaging for narrow groups of voters? What are the effects of disinformation campaigns? This session examines ways in which media is manipulated to control public conversation, derail democracy, and disrupt society.
Join the Stanford Internet Observatory for a conversation with US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, where he will discuss slowing the spread of health misinformation, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Health misinformation is a major threat to public health because it can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people’s health, and undermine public health efforts. Although […]
Do you feel like you and those around you are swimming in a soup of disinformation and lies? Why is this happening? How can anyone believe this stuff? What can you do to help pop the bubble and bring people back to reality? Join us as we break down: – How to identify disinformation – […]
A discussion on how platform research to address mis/disinformation should be approached through a race-based lens, new platform research solutions and methods being pioneered and utilized by researchers of color, the unique challenges researches of color face, and how philanthropy can better support and empower Black and Brown tech platform researchers to carry out their […]
The Chinese leadership has put artificial intelligence front and center in China’s industrial development. As part of this strategy, they have established: 1. Industry alliances—collaboration platforms involving local governments, academic institutions, and companies; and 2. Government guidance funds—public-private investment vehicles that mobilize massive amounts of capital in support of strategic and emerging technologies. CSET’s Ngor […]
The Flat Earth Society. The Illuminati. QAnon. Sometimes it seems like conspiracy theories have been multiplying exponentially, especially in this time of global pandemic. Why do we gravitate toward conspiracy theories to make sense of the world? What human need do these stories fill? In this program, we’ll explore some conspiracy theories old and new, […]
Jessica J. González is Co-CEO of Free Press, an organization dedicated to “saving net neutrality, achieving affordable internet access for all, uplifting the voices of people of color in the media, challenging old and new media gatekeepers to serve the public interest, ending unwarranted surveillance, defending press freedom and reimagining local journalism.” González has worked […]
As digitization increasingly shapes the scope of U.S. international trade, regulations and policies regarding cross-border data transfers carry significant economic implications. Yet—as the recent invalidation of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) demonstrates—trade, economic competitiveness, and free flows of data can come into tension with privacy and […]
The news industry in the United States is grappling with many serious and simultaneous challenges, including massive declines in the number of staff and outlets, perceptions of bias and blame for increasing political polarization, and displacement by opinion and even disinformation. Growing numbers of communities lack any local news, and online platforms draw ad revenues […]
Humans are now able to access information through more channels than ever before, exposing us to potentially dangerous conspiracy theories and deliberate disinformation campaigns. How and why does misinformation start? And what can we do to slow or stop its viral online spread? Join our panel of experts as they discuss ways to encourage […]
In this conversation, Duncan Watts and Danaë Metaxa will discuss Metaxa’s research using algorithm audits to measure gender and racial bias in online services such as Google Images. In addition to exploring the relevance of Metaxa’s work to algorithmic systems, the discussion will also touch on the importance of reconciling the sometimes competing epistemic values […]
A discussion on how platform research to address mis/disinformation should be approached through a race-based lens, new platform research solutions and methods being pioneered and utilized by researchers of color, the unique challenges researchers of color face, and how philanthropy can better support and empower Black and Brown tech platform researchers to carry out their […]
In Visions of Beirut, Hatim El-Hibri explores how the creation and circulation of images has shaped the urban spaces and cultural imaginaries of Beirut. Drawing on fieldwork and texts ranging from maps, urban plans, and aerial photographs to live television and drone-camera footage, El-Hibri traces the histories of how the technologies and media infrastructure that […]
In this talk, Dr. Celeste González de Bustamante, University of Arizona journalism professor, will discuss how research involving historical newspapers, including those in the National Digital Newspaper Program, contributes to better understanding of the Mexico-United States borderlands and beyond. Her talk will consider how interdisciplinary and cross border collaborations with libraries, librarians, and media scholars […]
Ruha Benjamin is professor of African American studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and author of the award-winning book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code among many other publications. Her work investigates the social dimensions of science, medicine and technology with a focus […]
With the growing risk of the fragmentation of the international digital ecosystem, prioritizing digital transformation has never been more important for Japan. The country’s digital transformation will largely determine its ability to adjust to profound demographic changes brought on by an ageing and contracting population, find new sources of competitiveness and drivers for productivity at […]
Defender of democracy, activist for women’s rights, and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, Amy Siskind is best known as the author of The Weekly List and as President of The New Agenda, a non-profit dedicated to the advancement of women. On Twitter she is @Amy_Siskind. Jay Rosen has been teaching journalism at New York University […]
“No one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other, and no one, as far as I know, has ever counted truthfulness among the political virtues,” wrote Hannah Arendt in 1967. Today, concerns run especially high over the fraught relationship between truth and politics, as majorities of Republican […]
Event Listing Header As many media accounts have recounted, Stop AAPI Hate reported that anti-Asian violence soared during the first wave of the 2020 COVID19 pandemic. From mid-March 2020 to the end of February 2021, 3,795 “Anti-Asian hate incidents” were reported to Stop AAPI Hate. North of the U.S. border in the Canadian province of […]
This session will provide an opportunity to discuss the challenges of reporting on Capitol Riots. Kadia Goba was on the ground reporting from inside the Capitol and Malachy Browne used eyewitness footage to piece together events from the thousands of livestreams and posts to social media. We will hear them talk about their experiences from […]
Tech sector whistleblowers have played an increasingly vital role in exposing racism and toxic workplace environments, algorithmic bias, and other platform harms. But the cost of coming forward with information can be tremendous – including psychological, legal, and employment ramifications. This webinar will explore what is needed to build and maintain safe and secure channels […]
Event featured image, but exclude link Event content Register here for the launch event for this highly anticipated event. News websites have financial incentives to spread disinformation, in order to increase their online traffic and, ultimately, their advertising revenue. Meanwhile, the dissemination of disinformation has disruptive and impactful consequences. The COVID-19 pandemic offers a recent […]
Hardly a day passes without a new technology ethics scandal–from privacy violations on social media platform to biased algorithms to controversial data collection for training facial recognition systems. In computing practice and research, good intentions sometimes still lead to negative consequences. This talk describes three lessons from my research that inform ethical practices in studying, […]
How should the government regulate election-related speech? Trump’s “Big Lie” raises the question of whether lies about election results should be regulated by the social media platforms, as well as the government. But of course, these kinds of lies are not the only kinds of election-related lies that raise thorny free speech questions. Can or […]
Activists. Journalists. Elected Representatives. Public Intellectuals. When women are vocal about political and social issues, too-often they are flogged with attacks via social networking sites, comment sections, discussion boards, email, and direct message. Rather than targeting their ideas, the abuse targets their identities, pummeling them with rape threats, attacks on their appearance and presumed sexual […]
There is a lot of concern about how the news ecosystem affects public opinion, political polarization, and democracy. Most of the research and public debate focuses on overtly fake material, particularly as it is distributed through social media. But, the vast majority of news consumption is actual produced by mainstream media, and the most common […]
Inspired by ethnographic work with queer of color users of the platform Tumblr during its heyday from 2010-2015 and using the Tumblr presence of Filipinx transfeminine visual and performance artist Mark Aguhar as a recurring touchstone, this talk’s provocation is that the assumptive ways in which a social media platform “should” be designed — singular […]
Join Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic and James McAuley, The Atlantic contributor and author of The House of Fragile Things, a history of Dreyfus-era France, for a conversation around the long history of conspiracy theory and its role in political culture, then and now. The discussion will be moderated by Sophia Rosenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at Penn. The […]
Popular narratives about how social media shapes political polarization emphasize echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and algorithmic radicalization. Yet a careful review of the scientific literature indicates there is surprisingly little evidence that these factors shape political beliefs or inter-group attitudes. Drawing upon multiple field experiments, large-scale analysis of social media data, and longitudinal in-depth […]
Lina Dencik is Professor in Digital Communication and Society at Cardiff’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture and Co-Founder/Director of the Data Justice Lab. Her research concerns the interplay between media developments and social and political change, with a particular focus on resistance, governance, and the politics of data. She has published five books including […]
Over the past two months, the Wall Street Journal’s “Facebook Files” series has chronicled the ways that Facebook and its platforms favor elites, harm teenagers’ mental health, encourage toxicity, take weak action to stop human trafficking and drug cartels, suppress political movements, and ignore the concerns of their employees that Facebook can clean up its […]
A few years ago, Finale Doshi-Velez and Mason Kortz – and a squad of collaborators – unpacked explanation as one way to hold AI systems accountable. Many frameworks for AI regulation and best practices have since emerged. In this conversation, Finale and Mason return to the question of accountability and regulation for AI: What are […]
When platform researchers undertake new projects, it is crucial to assess legal risks. Yet the legal constraints on platform research are often ambiguous. This webinar will explore what legal resources platform researchers need, as well as how to make decisions to reach research objectives.
As algorithms increasingly automate decision-making processes, filter information flows, and mediate our social interactions, ethical concerns immediately follow. Questions of fairness, accountability, and transparency permeate the growing set of concerns around the social and ethical implications of algorithms. As a growing community of scholars grapples with the ethics of algorithms, how can their findings be […]
The challenges facing global news-industry leaders have seldom been as great as today. Economic disruption, technology transformation and a frontal assault on an independent free press as ‘enemies of the people’ are creating unprecedented headwinds for news leaders. How do they lead in such tumultuous times? And where do they see opportunities for success beyond […]
Across the country, libraries, educators and civil society generally are leading in playing vital roles in addressing health misinformation in communities. We look forward to hearing insights from experts in the field on how we can best mitigate the impacts of misinformation and empower individuals to seek factual information. Join Knight Foundation and the Digital […]
This conversation is off the record. Please use this registration form if you wish to join us online. Please note that our speaker will be presenting in person at Harvard Kennedy School in Rubenstein 414AB (ELLWOOD DEMOCRACY LAB). Anyone with a Harvard ID is invited to join us on a first-come, first-served basis.
About the Speaker Sara García Santamaría is an Associate Professor at Universitat Jaume I and Universitat Blanquerna – Ramon Llull in Spain. She holds a Doctorate in Journalism Studies from the University of Sheffield (UK), where her research explored how the Cuban state-run media constructs the role of the people in public debate. Having completed […]
Online social networks often mirror inequality in real-world networks, from historical prejudice, economic or social factors. Such disparities are often picked up and amplified by algorithms that leverage social data for the purpose of providing recommendations, diffusing information, or forming groups. In this talk, we’ll discuss possible explanations for algorithmic bias in social networks, specifically […]
On Tuesday, November 16th at 6:00 pm ET in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, this year’s Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press will be delivered by Maria Ressa, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner, co-founder and CEO of Rappler.com, Fall 2021 Shorenstein Center Fellow, and Center for Public Leadership Hauser Leader. Shorenstein Center on Media, […]
Democracies are struggling to balance freedom of expression with equality for the weak as well as accountability for harmful speech. There is growing alarm at how internet giants distort the marketplace of ideas, undermine human dignity and derail truth-seeking — but little consensus on what should be done. Can we still have faith in the […]
How can we ethically engage a military-derived technology that has infiltrated every aspect of our lives from refrigerators to furniture? The weaponizing potential of the internet was part and partial to its initial conceit yet this history is often forgotten and therefore remains unconnected to the current violence that this life changing technology has enabled […]
Expanding positive freedoms that enable greater opportunities for communication—as opposed to emphasizing only negative freedoms that protect us from harm—is foundational to reforming our media system so that it serves everyone. Even as concerns about social harms currently dominate contemporary policy discussions, it is important to articulate collective needs and the political imaginary necessary for […]
We measure the immediate and medium-term effects of 21 highly-trafficked pieces of misinformation and fact-checks during the 2020 U.S. election with eight panel experiments (N = 17,681). Exposure to misinformation increased false beliefs by an average of 4.3 points on a 100-point belief certainty scale. Exposure to fact-checks more than corrected this effect, decreasing false […]
Research indicates women have less influence than men in a variety of professional settings, including politics. We conducted a field experiment on a social media platform where Democrats were randomly assigned female or male avatar before discussing their preferred candidate for the 2020 presidential primary election. By measuring changes in people’s preferences before and after […]
This talk will be hybrid in-person and via Zoom. Register in advance here for this meeting using your institutional email address. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Technology is often designed and deployed without critical reflection of the values that it embodies. Value trade-offs—between security and privacy, […]
The mob assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 opened a new chapter in domestic terrorism. For the first time in our nation’s history, America experienced its first non-peaceful post-election transfer of power. To date, more than 660 arrests have been made, and more than 12% of those arrested were veterans of the […]
It all feels like a precursor to a bad joke: What do foreign agents, white supremacists, conspiracists, snake oil salesmen, political operatives, white academics, and a disgruntled bunch of zoomers have in common? The groups have collided in a centrifuge of chaos online, where the tactics they use to hide their identities and manipulate audiences […]
Thirty years ago this December, the Soviet Union broke up, creating 15 new countries and high expectations that many of them would embrace democracy — including guarantees of freedom of the press. Thirty years on, only a handful of the post-Soviet states have met expectations for free, independent media. Several others maintain strict, Soviet-style controls […]
Advances in digital technologies and artificial intelligence hold great promise to boost economic prosperity. But as these technologies transform nearly every aspect of business and work, they are reshaping growth and distributional dynamics in ways that can increase economic inequality. Indeed, inequality has been rising in many countries, notably in the United States. Rising inequality […]
Information overload is something that humans have dealt with for millennia. During different historical eras, massive increases in what was available to know has motivated the creation of systems for sorting, indexing, and compiling information as well as concerns that the abundance of information might cause cultural anxiety or even drive people to madness. The […]
For education policymakers, the last two years have been among the most tumultuous and challenging in U.S. history. Issue after issue has stirred controversy, including COVID-induced school closures, mask and vaccine mandates, critical race theory, and transgender students’ rights. Local school board meetings have been stages for many conflicts. Board members are confronting angry protestors […]
Civil society and government stakeholders have very low trust in industry, based on repeated violations of the latter’s own promises. Concurrently, information asymmetry is an initial hurdle to both studying and proposing solutions for platform governance. However, as with everything in this space, the answer is rarely as simple as it may seem at first […]
This talk will draw on research from “Wearing Many Hats,” a forthcoming Data & Society report authored by Matt Goerzen and Gabriella Coleman. Dr. Coleman describes her talk as follows: Our report examines the transformative period in which many hackers moved from a vilified underground subculture into a domain of respected professionalism, playing a privileged […]
A newly released report from the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) – A Lie Can Travel: Election Disinformation in the United States, Brazil, and France – published by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), explores recent case studies of election disinformation in the U.S., Brazil, and France. It also examines tactics for mitigating the problem, including interventions by […]
When social media platforms first launched nearly two decades ago, they were seen as a force for good – a way to connect with family and friends, learn and explore new ideas, and engage with social and political movements. Yet, as the Facebook Papers and other research have documented, these same platforms have become vectors […]
Nearly one year ago, a violent mob broke into the United States Capitol in an effort to halt the certification of the electoral vote and overturn the 2020 election in favor of Donald Trump. The insurrection was, thankfully, unsuccessful. But its echoes continue to reverberate today: Many in the Republican Party attempt to deny, minimize, […]
In Discriminating Data: Correlation, Neighborhoods, and the New Politics of Recognition, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun reveals how polarization is a goal—not an error—within big data and machine learning. These methods, she argues, encode segregation, eugenics, and identity politics through their default assumptions and conditions. Correlation, which grounds big data’s predictive potential, stems from twentieth-century eugenic […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that health-related misinformation and disinformation can dangerously undermine the response to a public health crisis. Misleading information, intentional or not, has a myriad of effects, including reduced trust in public health responders, increased belief in false medical cures, and politicization of public health measures. The spread of these falsehoods has […]
Join us on Tuesday, January 25 from 12 PM – 1 PM PT for “Inclusive Content Moderation Is Innovative Content Moderation” featuring Aerica Shimizu Banks, founder of Shiso in conversation with Julie Owono, executive director of the Content Policy and Society Lab. This weekly seminar series is jointly organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program […]
Event Listing Header Speaker Series Session 1: Conceptual Frameworks for Networked Feminism Join us for our Networked Feminisms: Activist Assemblies and Digital Practices book launch and speaker series! About this event Bringing together contributors of the book, this speaker series explores how feminists employ a variety of online platforms, practices, and tools to create spaces […]
As social media become major channels for the diffusion of news and information, it becomes critical to understand how the complex interplay between cognitive, social, and algorithmic biases triggered by our reliance on online social networks makes us vulnerable to manipulation and disinformation. This talk overviews ongoing network analytics, modeling, and machine learning efforts to […]
This event is virtual and will be streamed live on Zoom (mit.zoom.us/j/96579656038) and recorded. Video game engines have promoted a new cultural economy for software production and have provided a common architecture for digital content creation across what were once distinct media verticals—film, television, video games and other immersive and interactive media forms that can […]
Its ban of Twitter in 2021 marked the Nigerian state as an analog entity that forbids the agency of its digital citizens. In this talk, James Yékú will track the implications of this ban in the context of what he has called cultural netizenship, the organizing rubric for visual articulations of internet citizenship that often […]
“Nigeria’s Twitter Ban and the Logic of Cultural Netizenship” CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE EVENT ON ZOOM About the Talk Its ban of Twitter in 2021 marked the Nigerian state as an analog entity that forbids the agency of its digital citizens. In this talk, James Yékú will track the implications of this ban […]
This event will explore historic and contemporary racial discrimination in all modalities of modern media. Register Here Georgetown University Racial Justice Institute The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One research institution and an EEO/AA institution
The extent to which we value intuitive or evidence-based reasoning has important implications for our susceptibility to misinformation. National survey data from Nov-Dec 2020 demonstrate that Trump favorability, conservatism, and Republicanism are associated with instinct-based epistemic values and a rejection of expertise and evidence. Results also indicate that these same epistemic motivations increase one’s likelihood […]
About the Talk The extent to which we value intuitive or evidence-based reasoning has important implications for our susceptibility to misinformation. National survey data from Nov-Dec 2020 demonstrate that Trump favorability, conservatism, and Republicanism are associated with instinct-based epistemic values and a rejection of expertise and evidence. Results also indicate that these same epistemic motivations […]
This year, the Committee’s Keynote event addresses pathways for the preservation of free speech while mediating the harmful effects of misinformation in our present societies. Freedom of speech has long been considered a bastion of liberal, open societies. However, in the present era, it is arguably no longer information that is scarce, but our ability […]
Join us for a weekly webinar series organized by the Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI) at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center (CPC) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative. The webinar will take place every Tuesday, starting January 11th from 12 PM – 1 PM PST over Zoom. This quarter, we feature […]
Journalists today are inundated with data about which stories attract the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares. These metrics influence what stories are written, how news is promoted, and even which journalists get hired and fired. Do metrics make journalists more accountable to the public? Or are these data tools the contemporary equivalent of a […]
In this talk Claes de Vreese, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Society at the University of Amsterdam, addresses how citizens see mis- and disinformation. The talk analyzes how citizens perceive the phenomenon and who they see as the main culprits. He also explores misconceptions about how algorithms work and how this may aggravate the consequences […]
From combatting violent extremism to mitigating misinformation, the news industry is caught in the middle of debates over how best to address a range of online harms. As regulators around the world consider new frameworks for content moderation, it is important to understand how efforts to reduce harmful content online can be detrimental to free […]
A roundtable focused on misinformation challenges in Canada and what, if anything, we can do about it. About this event This year has been marked by an influx of misinformation, from truckers motivated by COVID-19 medical misinformation to Russian information warfare and conspiracies about Ukrainian biolabs. Hear from an expert roundtable of journalists, academics, and […]
Join us for a webinar to launch IPL’s latest tool: the Congressional Tweet Tracker. We’ll show you how the tool can help you analyze trends in US immigration politics, explain the AI methods that helped build it, and describe its value for journalists, advocacy groups, and researchers. Discussion will include panelists from NYU’s Center for Social […]
Since the 2010s, Turkey’s ruling AKP government has vastly expanded its global communication apparatus to promote the country as a rising great power and the benevolent guardian of Muslims. In this presentation, Bilge Yesil will analyze the political mechanisms and ideational frameworks that underlie the new English-language outlets the AKP and its proxies developed after […]
The Colorado Sun and News Literacy Project bring you a three-part series about helping leaders teach others about fact from fiction. About this event Part one: Foundations of News Literacy will focus on strategies students need to determine fact from fiction. Part one will be held virtually over Zoom on March 31 from 6-7 p.m. […]
There is widespread agreement among ethicists and tech advocates that responsible AI principles requires fairness, transparency, privacy, human safety, and explanability. But it is not always clear how to operationalize these broad principles or how to handle situations when conflicts arise between them. Moving from the abstract to the concrete when developing algorithms often presents […]
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is a Harvard Kennedy School research center dedicated to exploring and illuminating the intersection of press, politics and public policy in theory and practice. The Center strives to bridge the gap between journalists and scholars, and between them and the public.
The concatenation of European crises shows major transformations in the contemporary international arena and points to the reasons for a structural change in the modes and uses of European public diplomacy, both inside and outside of EU institutions. Since 2008, European institutions have learned to live in a state of crisis and response: the Eurozone […]
RSVP for this virtual event by Monday, May 16, 3:00 PM ET. Zuccotti Park, the site of Occupy Wall Street, and One Liberty Plaza, the multi-billion-dollar tower, represent a complex power play between public and private interests. In the digital realm, social media grapples with a similar contention: social networks would not exist without platform […]
Who is part of technology development, who funds that development, and how we put technology to use all influence the outcomes that are possible. To change those outcomes, we must—all of us—shift our relationship to technology—how we use it, build it, fund it, and more. Join us for a fireside chat featuring Afua Bruce, Sue […]
While trust in political institutions rapidly deteriorates and the technology and media companies that we rely on repeatedly fail to meet our information needs, the public still overwhelmingly trusts libraries. That’s because librarians fulfill a service mission as community information stewards–long serving as the only place people can go for free internet access, computer instruction, […]
An on-demand video will be posted after the event. We’ve all seen the perils of disinformation. So, how do we combat it? This panel will explore concrete proposals for dismantling disinformation in communities, on social media, and through public policy and regulation. We’ll bring together experts from multiple fields — including communication, education, behavioral psychology, […]
On Tuesday, July 26, three experts at the intersection of online privacy and digital rights will unpack these questions, and others during a virtual Dialogues & Debates Panel. Watch the panel live at 8pm PT/ 11am ET/ 3pm UTC on Mozilla’s Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Is there a place for government regulation to mitigate the harmful effects of misinformation? Over the past year, the EU Commission’s Digital Services Act, and the Online Safety Bill in the UK have provided some possible regulatory roadmaps. This distinguished panel will explore the current regulatory landscape in the context of online information, consider the […]
Media Consumption, Misinformation, and Polarization Social media has transformed the media and political landscape, but the vast majority of Americans still get their news from traditional sources such as local TV, cable TV, radio, and newspapers. As the media environment continues to fracture, how does news consumption and social media behavior affect how voters think […]
With the prevalence of disinformation geared to instill doubt rather than clarity,Creating Chaos Online, unmasks disinformation when it attempts to pass as deliberation in the public sphere and distorts the democratic processes. Dr. Zelenkauskaitė finds that repeated tropes justifying Russian trolling were found to circulate across not only all analyzed media platforms’ comments, but also across […]
The Law School’s LawTech Center focuses on pressing questions in law and technology, including policy concerns, data analysis of legal texts and the use of technology in the legal profession. Colgate University professor Dan Bouk discusses his new book, “Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the US Census and How to Read Them.” Event Contact: […]
Using Social Media to Drive the Political Conversation Social media is a key tool for candidates and lawmakers to share policy positions, connect with voters, and fundraise. This seminar will present new research on how congressional candidates and officeholders use social media to gain media attention, raise money, respond to crises, and shape the broader […]
Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture The Baby Boomers are the largest and most powerful generation in recent American history. They dominate cultural and political institutions and make up the largest slice of the electorate. They’re also, on average, whiter, wealthier, and more conservative than younger generations, placing them […]
Beyond Facebook and Twitter: The Impact of New and Niche Platforms For years, Facebook and Twitter dominated scholarly research about the social media landscape. But in the last few years, new video-based social networks and alt-platforms have emerged. How do these platforms fit into the broader online ecosystem and what impact could they have in […]
Claes De Vreese is a Distinguished University Professor of AI & Society at the University of Amsterdam with a special focus on AI, media, and democracy. He also holds the Chair of Political Communication at The Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam. He is the founding inaugural scientific director of the Digital Democracy […]
Lauren Feldman is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University. Her current research emphasizes three primary areas of interest: climate change communication, partisan media and misinformation, and comedy and social change. Feldman’s research has been published in more than thirty peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as in several edited […]
In the wake of the FTX collapse, what impact have cryptocurrencies had on the world and what can we learn from them about the next generation of the internet we want to build? Join Molly White of Web3 is Going Just Great fame and internet and society professor Jonathan Zittrain for a wide-ranging fireside chat […]
On Thursday, February 16 at 11am ET Dave Karpf will be in conversation with Nina Hall about her recent book Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era. In her book Nina does what no other International Relations scholar has done before, research the power and spread of digital advocacy organizations. Dave and Nina will discuss her investigation of how […]
NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, the 370 Jay Project, and the NYU Tandon Department of Technology, Culture and Society invite you to a new discussion in the series “Co-Opting AI.” This event will examine how AI intersects with the profession of recruiting and with gaining access to the labor market. It will take a connect […]
The COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the lives of essential workers in America, shifting the conditions, timing, equipment, and spatial practices of their work, and expanding surveillance inside the workplace. And while employers collected increasing amounts of data about workers’ health, little of it was shared with workers themselves. The result was an information vacuum that […]
Towards Life 3.0: Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century is a talk series organized and facilitated by Dr. Mathias Risse, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs, and Philosophy and Sushma Raman, Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Drawing inspiration […]
Since Russia’s attempt to interfere with the 2016 election, the political and scholarly community has focused considerable attention on foreign influence in American politics. Researchers and media have investigated the scale and impact of Russia’s campaign, and U.S. lawmakers are now increasingly concerned about national security risks surrounding China’s ownership of TikTok. What do we […]
While mis- and dis-information is primarily understood in terms of its facticity, or lack thereof, the very circulation of information such as news stories is tied to the cultural contexts in which people come to trust and rely on certain channels of information. Tackling misinformation, then, requires not just repudiation of its claims but an […]
Whether they are reporting on gun violence, covering protests in the post-Dobbs era, or sharing information about COVID with the public, journalists are on the frontlines, bringing important issues to light. But the risks of that reporting don’t lie equally with everyone. White women journalists face much more significant harassment than their white male counterparts, […]
In his project “Real Time Monitoring of 2022 US Election-Related Misinformation and its Psycho-Social Correlates on Twitter” Jeffrey Lees seeks to answer the question what is the role of superusers? We seek to understand whether superusers are early commenters, whether superusers change the discussion agenda, and whether superusers instigate additional public interest from others.
Recent, rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) research and deployment have demonstrated technology’s potential to drastically transform and potentially improve the lives of many people across the world. From unlocking millions of hours’ worth of biological research in a fraction of the time to reducing the amount of energy used by industrial power plants, the […]
When: Wednesday, August 30th, 2023, 1–4 pm Where: Weizenbaum Institute + Zoom (hybrid) Registration: https://forms.gle/7NJngW7Ty4c8TWs3A Messaging applications, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, are increasingly used for all forms of political communication. They became important venues for people to talk about political issues, share news, and communicate with governmental institutions. Unlike public pages of social networking […]
In the last year, open foundation models have proliferated widely. Given the rapid adoption of these models, cultivating a responsible open source AI ecosystem is crucial and urgent. Our workshop presents an opportunity to learn from experts in different fields who have worked on responsible release strategies, risk mitigation, and policy interventions that can help.
This event is part of the Speaker Series on Misinformation, co-sponsored by the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School and the NULab at Northeastern University.
Online content moderators have a difficult and thankless job: delivering results and determining what you see on the web. But what do they actually do, and how do they do it? Hear from actual moderators who have served at some of the largest social media platforms in the world and are now at the forefront […]
21st century media pose challenges to preserving the historical record. Collecting institutions need guidance and new strategies in order to save selective cellphone video, GPS data, and video from surveillance cameras, drones, and police bodycams. In this Talk, Howard Besser will discuss how saving this type of material poses procedural, policy, and privacy issues. And […]
Hosted by The University of Texas at Austin’s Good Systems’ “Designing Responsible AI Technologies to Protect Information Integrity” research team, this virtual event brings together researchers and thought leaders working across disciplines and sectors, focusing on developing AI tools for use by journalists, fact-checkers, and researchers. The event will feature three keynote talks and a panel […]
The future of the Internet is (in) the cloud. Companies like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), rather than platforms like X or Meta, will become the tech industry’s most powerful players. To the extent this is not already the case, the choices of these cloud companies will influence what our wired world looks like, […]
In this talk, we present a methodological outlook for empirical and historical studies of platforms, emphasizing their unique characteristics like programmability and multisidedness. We explore how web archives play a critical role in preserving bits of their past. Despite the challenges posed by the ephemerality and continuous updates of platforms, we show how web archives […]
Strange as it may seem, Big Tech has become feminist. Meta has a team devoted to women’s safety. Venmo monitors its app for gender-based discrimination. Bumble aspires to make misogyny illegal. And it’s not just talk: Big Tech is putting its money where its mouth is, devoting significant time and resources to achieving a feminist […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming every aspect of society, from education and work to health care and finance. Its widespread adoption also has started to impact global politics, from elections to international conflict. The tradeoffs between AI’s positive and more harmful effects are still being debated. While AI could allow transformative advances in scientific discovery […]
The George Washington University’s Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics and the Researcher Support Consortium invite you to join them for Addressing Researcher Harassment: A Fireside Chat and Panel Discussion to Launch New Research Support Tools.
The Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI) and the Coalition for Independent Technology Research invite you to a memorial service for CrowdTangle, a tool that offered thousands around the globe the ability to analyze real time trends in the information people were sharing. Meta eliminated CrowdTangle on August 14, 2024, in the middle of a year in which […]
Misinformation has been a problem for all of human history, but is particularly challenging to control on today’s social media platforms. Under the current US Section 230 regulation, internet companies are not held responsible for the content shared on their platforms. Other countries have taken different approaches to regulation. With a shared goal to maintain […]
Women of color candidates continue to be underrepresented in Congress while also facing significant challenges in running for office. One of these challenges includes the kinds of offensive and hate speech they are subject to on social media platforms. In this research briefing, we will share findings from a new study conducted by the Online Violence […]
For decades, America has seen a steady decline in trust in institutions — in government, science, media, and even the very idea of democracy. The problem stems from several places, such as rising political polarization and declining civic participation. But many place the blame on our increasingly siloed and partisan information environment, which is exacerbated […]
The alarming rise of mis- and disinformation influencing recent elections spurred a flurry of new research to understand the trend. But work among academics, nonprofits and the technology sector made some activists suspicious that a conspiracy was developing to muzzle conservative and right-wing ideas – leading to a campaign to curb research. In these polarized […]
Join us for “Media Coverage of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election: The View from Germany and the United States,” a Fireside Chat hosted by the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, in partnership with UNC Global Affairs, Thomas Mann House Los Angeles, and the UNC Center for European Studies, and co-sponsored by the UNC School of Information and Library […]
General-purpose AI systems are now deployed to billions of users, but they pose risks related to bias, fraud, privacy, copyright, CBRN, NCII, and more. To assess these risks, we need independent and community-driven evaluations, audits and red teaming, and responsible disclosure. Our workshop on the future of third-party AI evaluation dives into these topics with experts on: Third-party evaluations, […]
This talk will be a reflection on Robyn Caplan’s multi-perspective approach to studying platforms, and will highlight the importance of triangulation when it comes to studying networked actors. This talk will give an overview of Caplan’s research (touching on research on platform personnel, media associations, online creators, civil society actors) and will explore the theoretical […]
Join the Center for Media at Risk and the Center on Digital Culture and Society for a symposium examining the relationship between social media and the academy.
In this panel, we talk to three online content creators who do journalistic work about how their work is both alike and different than mainstream journalism, how they engage with audiences and what traditional journalists can learn from them.
Social media platforms have become increasingly opaque at precisely the moment their influence on society has reached unprecedented levels. Over the long-term, we need to conceptualize true independent transparency as an infrastructure project built on four pillars—government requirements & legal protections, international standards, shared tooling, and sustainable funding. We are making slow but steady progress […]
As liberal democracies around the world are faltering, William Galston’s new book, “Anger, Fear, Domination: Dark Passions and the Power of Political Speech,” explores the sources of this decline that stem from the internal vulnerabilities of liberal democracy, particularly the ability of ambitious leaders to mobilize public anger and fear in the service of domination. […]
Join the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology, and Protect Democracy for a webinar on Federal Efforts to Expand Access to State Administrative Data. This event, the third in a series related to government data privacy, follows a recently-released explainer on Federal Efforts to Expand Access to Data from State-Run […]
In this webinar, Trisha Meyer (co-author) will present the findings of the recently published EDMO report on the compliance and effectiveness of Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines’ (VLOPSE) actions to implement the Code of Practice (now Code of Conduct) on Disinformation, focusing on Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google (Search and YouTube), Microsoft (Bing […]
From September 21–28, New York City will host Climate Week. Leaders from business, politics, academia, and civil society will gather to share ideas and develop strategies to address the climate crisis. The tech industry intersects with climate concerns in a number of ways, not least of which is through its own growing demand for natural […]
On 22 September, the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) invites you to the launch of its landmark report, Artificial Intelligence and Peacebuilding: Opportunities and Challenges. AI is increasingly shaping peacebuilding efforts – helping monitor conflict risks, support humanitarian coordination, and foster dialogue. Yet, the same technologies can also fuel repression, surveillance, disinformation, and […]
Researcher Tamara Kneese speaks with environmental justice researcher Sanjana Paul and critical social scientist Jasmine McNealy about the environmental toll AI development is taking on local water supplies, energy systems, and communities around the world. This event will take place online and in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor Artificial […]
The Gender and Tech Talk Series brings together leading scholars, advocates, and practitioners to discuss the intersections of gender, technology, democracy and human rights. It critically examines how digital platforms and technologies impact women, queer and gender-diverse individuals while exploring pathways for more inclusive, rights-focused digital governance frameworks. The fourth talk, “Technocapitalism and Environmental Justice,” […]
AI is no longer just moderating individual posts — it is learning how to interpret and enforce policy itself. Dave Willner — who has led trust and safety teams at Facebook, Airbnb, and OpenAI — joins journalist Meg Marco for a conversation about the shifting terrain of moderation in the age of generative AI. From […]
As AI systems become more conversational, the lines between tool, companion, and manipulator are blurring. What happens when machines start telling us what we want to hear—and when users start depending on them for emotional connection? In this conversation, journalist and author Kashmir Hill joins the Berkman Klein Center’s Meg Marco (Senior Director, Applied Social […]
Hosted by the Center for Democracy & Technology and Stand Together Trust, the Future of Speech Online conference is an annual event that brings together policymakers, media, academics, corporations, advocates, and thought leaders to discuss today’s most pressing issues around free speech online. Governments have always worked to shape the speech of private parties and […]
The New York Public Library and Data & Society present “Understanding AI,” a four-part live event series exploring the social implications of artificial intelligence and its impacts on democracy, the environment, and human labor. Featuring key figures in the AI ethics field, these events will take place in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) in New York City as part […]
Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are increasingly vital to national security operations. The United States, China, and other states seek to harness these tools to bolster their own military and intelligence superiority. Yet their advent exacerbates an existing paradox within our democracy: some of the most consequential decisions made in the name of national security […]
Beyond the Algorithm: From Research to Action for Democratic Renewal is a hybrid event jointly organised by the Horizon Europe KT4D, ORBIS, ITHACA and AI4GOV projects. The event puts under the spotlight the rapid deployment of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data technologies and how these these technologies hold the promise of fostering civic participation, transparency, […]
Zoë Hitzig, known for her research and writing on the political economy of AI, including a widely discussed op-ed reflecting on her decision to leave OpenAI, will examine how AI systems may reshape where knowledge resides and how decisions are made. As these systems begin to capture and operationalize forms of tacit, experience-based knowledge long […]
The AI Index, currently in its ninth year, tracks, collates, distills, and visualizes data relating to artificial intelligence. What is changing in the field of AI? Join Stanford HAI’s AI Index Lead Sha Sajadieh for an exclusive look into this trusted source of AI intelligence. Learn about the year’s major AI breakthroughs, changes in the […]
The United States census, conducted every ten years, is one of the world’s oldest and biggest data-making endeavors, and one of the country’s most consequential. In her urgent new book Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census, professor, researcher, and Data & Society founder […]