What if viral cultural moments were not just entertainment, but strategic entry points for influence? High-visibility events, from major entertainment events to viral online controversies, are increasingly used within the information environment as opportunities for influence and narrative shaping. This webinar explores how Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) actors exploit these moments to inject […]
In 2025, the first PAIRSx Africa webinar was held alongside the Global AI Summit on Africa in Rwanda. The session brought together policy experts, practitioners, developers, and academics to advance the practice of participatory AI across Africa. It served as a critical point for defining Africa’s participatory needs and establishing a community capable of formulating […]
Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on May 12th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminarwith Jennifer Heifferon & Alanna Powers-O’Brien. About the Seminar: As adolescence becomes increasingly digital, public discourse tends to focus on screen time, platform design, and online harms. Yet alongside these concerns, a parallel transformation has unfolded: the steady erosion of physical spaces meant […]
The increasing availability of digital behavioral data and computational tools has transformed how communication researchers study media use, exposure, and effects. These developments offer unprecedented analytical depth – but also introduce new complexities in measurement, theory-building, and ethical practice. This year’s conference of the Methods Division invites contributions that advance and critically engage with computational […]
In late September, 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the continental United States, churning its way up the Atlantic seaboard. The storm devastated North Carolina with massive rainfall and flooding of towns such as Asheville. All told, the damage from Helene totaled over 50 billion dollars and the loss of entire communities. But Hurricane Helene […]
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 […]
João C. Magalhães (University of Manchester, UK), Klara Matusewicz (University of Manchester, UK), and Robert Gorwa (WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Germany) are organising a two-day workshop, The Politics of GenAI Governance, at MANCEPT 2026 in Manchester, 2–4 September 2026. The workshop treats GenAI governance as a collective and contested political practice — asking which […]
Democracies today face profound challenges, including the proliferation of fake news and online disinformation, the rise of digital authoritarianism and digital fascism, the big tech monopolies of online platforms such as Google, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Amazon, WhatsApp, ChatGPT, etc., post-truth and algorithmic politics, the danger of a new world war, political polarisation, the breakdown […]
AI companion bots are reshaping how people connect, confide, and cope, with children and adolescents among their most active users. Even as evidence of their potential social and developmental harms grows, these products face limited regulatory oversight. On May 26, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings will host a conversation on whether AI companion […]
Generative AI is changing how misinformation is produced, circulated, and perceived. What does the evidence tell us specifically about this cycle, opportunities to mitigate it, and what we don’t know yet? The IPIE is pleased to invite you to our upcoming webinar, presenting findings from our major new meta-analysis drawing on studies that involved more than 33,000 participants. […]
The GLOBAL SUMMIT ON DISINFORMATION is a space for global interaction where journalists, researchers, academics, fact-checkers, media and government representatives, civil society organizations, professors, and students meet annually to discuss, and present actions, proposals, and success stories on the challenges of fighting disinformation at the global level. Learn more and register to attend here. Note: […]
Article 38 of the EU Digital Services Act could be described as a masterpiece of legal drafting – 57 words to say very large online platforms must provide a version of their service not based on profiling. Meta provided a sludgy, unusable option. In the absence of action from the European Commission, Dutch NGO Bits […]
In the late nineteenth century, the U.S. government and American corporations generated an unprecedented amount of paper records. The data complex emerged as a national network of repositories built to house all those documents. Over the next several decades, the data complex expanded from traditional archives and libraries to bombproof bunkers and securitized data banks. […]
The DSA establishes a hybrid enforcement framework. The European Commission holds exclusive competence to supervise and enforce DSA obligations on Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs). National authorities — Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs) — handle all other intermediaries established in their territory. This centralized exclusive competence creates a real […]
How does our world change when artificial intelligence produces content faster than we can verify it? The Fake News Festival brings together science, practice, and the public to examine disinformation, artificial intelligence, and the future of our information society from diverse perspectives. In keynotes, lectures, and workshops, experts from research, media, politics, and civil society discuss how AI is changing the creation and spread of fake news, what risks and opportunities […]
As generative AI rapidly reshapes classrooms around the globe, educators and decisionmakers are grappling with a major concern: How can generative AI be used to help, not harm, teaching and learning? What is the role of technology in the classroom? This past January, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings released the report “A new […]
With companies like OpenAI taking Pentagon contracts and Elon Musk using government resources to scrape Americans’ data, it’s hard to feel that there are any tangible ways to resist the techno-fascist backslide. To regain a sense of social agency, we are convening a participatory conference inspired by the Luddite movement. We will tackle questions such […]
Can European software built on cheap Chinese AI models be trusted? As open-source model families like Alibaba’s Qwen surge in global popularity, an increasing number of international developers are quietly integrating them into their tech stacks. However, this cost-effective accessibility may come with a significant hidden vulnerability: the systematic embedding of Chinese propaganda into core […]
The WSIS Forum serves as the central multistakeholder convening platform mandated to advance the implementation of the WSIS Action Lines and support global digital cooperation. Anchored in the renewed UNGA mandate, the Forum brings together governments, the private sector, civil society, technical communities, academia, youth, and international organizations in a uniquely inclusive environment for dialogue, […]
In this talk, Dr. Möllers parses the current debate on technofascism(s) to develop a materialist understanding of technofascist formations from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and anti-colonial perspectives. She demonstrates that a focus on materiality highlights both the ordinariness and global/planetary dimensions of contemporary technofascist formations. She argues that a materialist understanding of technofascist formations […]
The company Pangram has built the leading product for detecting if purportedly human-written words were actually generated by machines. Their work was among the first to publicly prove the novel “Shy Girl” was largely written by AI, and the book was eventually pulled from store shelves. Pangram has also identified reams of AI-assisted content on […]
AI slop—low-quality, mass-produced content created by generative AI—is increasingly permeating the digital environments that young children encounter during what is the most critical period for their development and lifelong well-being. As concerns grow about the potential effects of AI slop on young children, questions are also emerging about the incentives that drive its creation and […]
The International Conference for Computational Social Science (IC2S2) will be hosted by the Vermont Complex Systems Institute at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont from July 28-31, 2026. IC2S2 has emerged as the dominant conference at the intersection of social and computational science, bringing together researchers from around the world in sociology, economics, political science, psychology, cognitive science, […]
The JournalismAI Strategy Lab is expanding, and this time we’re heading to Latin America. We’ve had a great response from the LATAM community over the years, and we’re excited to be launching a programme built specifically for the region and taught entirely in Spanish. Who should apply? Journalists and media professionals ready to move from […]
Hype, hope, disappointment. Hype is the rhetoric of tech billionaires, of VCs, of tech-pushers, of AI boosters and AI doomers. Hype is about attention, grabbing it, holding it. Hype is about resources, gathering them, directing them. Hype is about control. Tech hype is a problem for our society and our schools. It points our time, […]
AI agents have begun to move from speculative promise into everyday deployment. They translate high-level goals into plans and carry them out across connected digital environments. Agent builders often promise that users will remain in control through approval prompts and pause buttons. Yet these safeguards work only when users can recognize a mistake and intervene […]
Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Information Democracy & Social–cybersecurity (IDeaS) is hosting a conference focused on policy challenges emerging from the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and digital platforms. Advances in AI systems, shifts in platform governance, and the scale and speed of online communication are transforming how information is produced, distributed, and consumed. At […]
AI is reshaping visual storytelling. Tools that generate, edit and synthesize images, video and data visualizations are moving faster than the field can track. There are no industry standards, few documented cases and a lot of open questions. So instead of waiting for policy, we are going to jumpstart the conversation and start prototyping. Join […]
“The University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication is seeking to fill a tenure-track assistant professor position in Media Industry Studies to begin the fall semester of 2027. We are seeking a productive researcher, engaged scholar, and committed teacher/mentor who studies critical approaches to media industries and their intersections with media policy, political economy, advertising, […]
Time, focus and community for your research on the societal impact of digital transformation A fellowship at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) provides the freedom to dedicate yourself to your research and the opportunity to join a vibrant interdisciplinary community. Step away from daily work routines to gain new perspectives and build lasting […]
“Data & Society seeks a post-doctoral research fellow for AI-Enabled Scams as a Systemic Security Challenge, a two-year project housed under our AI & Democracy initiative and led by Director of Research Dr. Alice Marwick. The position is fully remote, begins September 2026, and runs through May 31, 2028. Apply by July 15, 2026.”
Since 2020, health professionals as creators and influencers has exploded. While they existed long before this date, the advent of the COVID-19 Pandemic accelerated the growth and importance of health influencers/creators. Health professionals now hold an important place in wellness and online communities but often are disregarded in the broader literature or in traditional health […]
The AI Civic Action Accelerator is a free, 6-session, part-time program that helps individuals and teams refine and advance promising policy solutions to civic artificial intelligence (AI) challenges. The accelerator will support early-stage projects that aim to strengthen the relationship between government, communities, and AI. We are seeking practical, community-driven ideas that help governments tackle […]