Social Science Research Council Research AMP Just Tech

Dialogues & Debates | Mozilla Festival

Virtual

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.

Can regulation solve the problem of misinformation? | Information Futures Lab, Brown University

Hybrid

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 […]

2022 Midterms: NYU Center for Social Media & Politics Seminar Series

Zoom

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 […]

CDCS Book Talk: Asta Zelenkauskaitė, Drexel University

Annenberg School Room 108

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 […]

Democracy’s Data: Book Talk With Dan Bouk

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: […]

2022 Midterms: NYU’s CSMaP Seminar Series

Zoom

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 […]

2022 Midterms: NYU’s CSMaP Seminar Series

Zoom

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 […]

2022 Midterms: NYU’s CSMaP Seminar Series

Zoom

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 […]

Elihu Katz Colloquium: Claes De Vreese, University of Amsterdam

Hybrid

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 […]

Elihu Katz Colloquium: Lauren Feldman (Ph.D. ’08), Rutgers University

Hybrid Annenberg Room 500 and on Zoom

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 […]

Web3 is Going Just Where? A fireside chat with Molly White and Jonathan Zittrain

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 […]

GWU IDDP: Nina Hall in Conversation with Dave Karpf

George Washington University Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics

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 […]

Co-Opting AI: Recruiting | NYU Institute for Public Knowledge

Virtual

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 […]

Essentially Unprotected: Health Data and the Surveillance of Essential Workers During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Virtual

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 […]

Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy: The Good Web

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 […]

Free

Foreign Interference & Propaganda: What We Know and What to Expect | NYU Center for Social Media and Politics

Virtual

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 […]

Digital Policy Rounds: Mis/disinformation and the Question of Authenticity | Centre for Media, Technology, and Democracy

Virtual

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 […]

“Weaponizing Misogyny”: Gender-Based Harassment’s Impact on Journalists and Free Expression | Berkman Klein Center

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, […]

GW IDDP: Research Spotlight Webinar Featuring Jeffrey Lees

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.

Steering AI for the Public Good: A Dialogue for the Future | Institute for Advanced Study

Princeton University Princeton, NJ, United States

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 […]

“Whose data is it anyway? Ethical, practical, and methodological challenges of data donation in messenger groups research” | WI Methods Lab

Hybrid

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 […]

Workshop on Responsible and Open Foundation Models | Open foundation models

Virtual

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.

Preserving Digital Images and Data: Procedural, Policy, and Privacy Issues | Good Systems

Zoom

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 […]

Disinfo Day

University of Texas at Austin , United States

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 […]

What is the Cloud Doing to the Internet? | WZB

WZB Berlin Social Science Center Reichpietschufer 50, 10785, Berlin, Raum, Germany

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, […]

The Material Conditions of Platform Governance | Lab Platform Governance, Media and Technology (PGMT)

Zoom

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 […]

Big Tech Feminism | WZB

WZB Berlin Social Science Center Reichpietschufer 50, 10785, Berlin, Raum, Germany

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 […]

The promise and perils of AI: Issues at stake in the 2024 election | Brookings

Spelman College

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 […]

Addressing Researcher Harassment | George Washington University

George Washington Univeristy Washington D.C, District of Columbia

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.

CrowdTangle Funeral | The Knight-Georgetown Institute

Georgetown University Washington D.C, United States

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 […]

Regulating Platforms & Speech in an Age of Fake News | Ravi K. Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets & Society

Boston University Boston, MA, United States

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 […]

Report launch: Offensive speech and hate speech targeted at Congressional Candidates in the 2024 Election | Center for Democracy & Technology

Virtual

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 […]

Can We Rebuild Trust in the Information Environment? | NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics and the Center for News, Technology & Innovation

New York University New York, NY, United States

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 Campaign to Curb Misinformation Research | Boston University

Virtual

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 […]

Threats to Democracies: A Transatlantic Workshop on Media and the 2024 Elections

Virtual

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 […]

The Future of Third-Party AI Evaluation | CRFM & CITP

Virtual

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, […]

Session 13: Robyn Caplan: Studying Networked Platform Governance: A Multi-Perspective Approach | PGMT

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 […]