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, […]
The 2nd edition of the International Participatory AI Research and Practice Symposium (PAIRS) will take place concurrent with the India AI Impact Summit. Like the first edition, which was an independent side-event of the Paris AI Action Summit in February 2025, and PAIRSx Africa, held online concurrent to the Global AI Summit on Africa in […]
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 […]
Logging into social media platforms and other apps increasingly requires revealing sensitive information, like your birthday and full legal name. That data is collected, processed and shared in ways that can be opaque to the user. It’s no wonder six-in-ten U.S. adults say they do not think it is possible to go through daily life […]
About the Forum Over the past two years, FIMI has shifted from isolated disinformation campaigns to coordinated, AI-enabled operations that combine narrative manipulation, cyber disruption, economic pressure, and reputational attacks — often running simultaneously. The threat is no longer niche. It targets governments, democratic institutions, corporations, and civil society at the same time. This forum […]
Democracies around the world are grappling with declining trust in public institutions, increasing polarisation and the rapid spread of disinformation, often amplified by AI. How can we best build digital literacy and strengthen democratic culture to reconnect citizens with decision-making? At this critical moment, civic engagement feels increasingly fragile. Yet it remains one of our most powerful tools […]
Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on April 21st from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminarwith Jonathan Stray. About the Seminar: There has been much discussion of how AI can help humans cooperate, but much less about what happens when you add AI to humans who disagree — potentially violently. Social media systems, which are increasingly […]
A free Australian Internet Observatory Webinar exploring the tool and process for using data donations as a method for collecting digital platform data. Presented by Prof Dan Angus (QUT), Prof Nic Carah (University of Queensland) and Dr Amanda Lawrence (RMIT University). Digital platforms shape how Australians access information, communicate, entertain, engage with government services, participate […]
The Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab) is hosting our next symposium on Influencer Diplomacy, to be held via Zoom on 24 April 2026, 10:00 – 16:00 (AWST). This one-day online event focuses on the generative concept of “influencer diplomacy,” understood as the ways in which influencer cultures, practices, and industries shape diplomatic processes. This includes influencers taking […]
On behalf of the Search Engines and Society Network (SEASON), we invite submissions for the 2026 edition of the Search Engines and Society Annual Conference (SEASON 2026), to be held at HAW Hamburg, Germany, from 15–17 September 2026. Following the success of SEASON 2025, which brought together an engaged and diverse international community of researchers, […]
We are pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a forthcoming special issue titled “AI, Algorithmic Media, and Digital Governance: Power, Control, and Technological Transformation,” to be published in the journal Global Media and China. The accelerating integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into digital infrastructures represents a profound transformation in contemporary media environments and governance […]
Social media platforms are increasingly shaped by the integration of generative AI alongside long-standing analytical and predictive models. Today’s algorithmic systems are moving from the background infrastructure to the forefront of digital social life – where autonomous AI agents operate in coexistence with (or independently of) human users. They intervene in the content feeds as […]
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 […]
The final conference for EDMO BELUX 2.0: Based in Belgium and Luxembourg, we take the opportunity to reflect how our efforts across fact-checking, media literacy, research investigations to monitor and respond to disinformation raise resilience in democratic societies. In particular we seek to contribute policy evidence of societal threats and responses to disinformation. This conference […]
Our hopes are pinned on AI labels. AI labels are expected to help users navigate an increasingly synthetic information environment by distinguishing fact from fiction, human from machine. Beginning in August 2025, the EU AI Act requires professional users of GenAI, including journalists, advertisers, political actors, governments, and public institutions, to disclose AI-generated content. The […]
Content moderation is critical to protecting users against harmful and illegal online content, although it may also restrict free expression. Over the past two decades, platforms have increasingly turned to automation to perform content moderation at scale. First through hashing algorithms and later through predictive machine learning methods, many large platforms have automated over 90% of […]
Search Engines and Society Annual Conference (SEASON 2026) brings together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss the societal impact of search technologies. The conference offers keynotes, panels, workshops, and networking opportunities. Some of the themes for this year’s conference include: Political bias and elections Literacy and education AI overviews and trust Health and high-stakes information AI […]
Dramatic advances in agentic AI models are rapidly outpacing governance responses, raising profound safety concerns and even questions about the future of civilization. As these capabilities explode, the world needs guardrails to minimize AI risks while allowing humanity to reap its rewards. But who, precisely, is best placed to shape the contours of such a […]
PAIRSx Public Sector is an open one-day symposium that will be hosted at the Ada Lovelace Institute on 5th November 2026 to explore how public bodies are engaging and involving the public and civil society organisations around their adoption of AI, particularly in the UK. The PAIRSx Public Sector symposium is a spin-out event from […]
Join POLITICO in Washington, D.C. for special conversations with policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, investors and innovators crafting the rules of the road for AI and the decisions shaping its future. _____ As the development and deployment of artificial intelligence transforms the economy and society, decisions being made today by policymakers and executives will determine who […]
Artificial intelligence is no longer an emerging technology — it is already embedded in hiring, healthcare, public infrastructure, and democratic processes, yet the institutions meant to govern it remain incomplete and unevenly distributed across global contexts. This webinar treats AI governance as a political and cultural question rather than a technical one: who sets the […]
“For the fourth year running, we asked experts who study the information environment what they’re seeing in their respective countries. The answer is sobering: three in four experts now expect it to worsen over the next year, the highest level we’ve recorded since the survey began. Join us on 16 September at 18:00 CEST for a virtual briefing […]
The 27th International Symposium on Journalism (ISOJ) will take place Sept. 17-18, 2026, online and in person at the University of Texas at Austin. Stay up to date with important announcements about the conference by subscribing to our newsletter. El 27º Simposio Internacional de Periodismo (ISOJ) se llevará a cabo los días 17 y 18 […]
What happens when you ask AI chatbots about a crisis or terror attack? While models are programmed to block violent content, real-world audits reveal a concerning phenomenon: “Reject then launder.” Chatbots initially condemn the violence to pass safety filters, only to immediately validate and whitewash the underlying extremist ideology in their response. Crucially, this is […]
INMA’s Media Innovation Week returns to Madrid in September 2026 — uniting Europe’s most ambitious media leaders at the intersection of data, product, audience, and revenue. Madrid will convene the people setting the pace for Europe’s news industry. Alongside established voices, you’ll hear from the innovators building what comes next — the creators rewriting engagement, […]
Social media platforms are increasingly shaped by the integration of generative AI alongside long-standing analytical and predictive models. Today’s algorithmic systems are moving from the background infrastructure to the forefront of digital social life – intervening in the content feeds as conversational agents like xAI’s Grok, reshaping identity through synthetic likenesses of OpenAI’s Sora-2, and […]
This year’s Future of Speech Online will examine the need for online anonymity, where it should or shouldn’t be compromised, the emerging and growing threats to anonymity online, and how to mitigate them. We will bring together civil society, academics, companies, practitioners and others to demonstrate how anonymity is used, how it is achieved technically, […]
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 […]
Co-Opting AI: Archives will examine how archives and archiving—as infrastructure, epistemology, and social practice—relate to contemporary AI systems. The session will be recorded for those who cannot attend live – make sure to register to receive notification when the video is available to view.
From document analysis to pattern detection to verification, AI is changing how investigative journalists dive into research and how fast they can move. The question now is how to scale those skills and put them in the hands of reporters to do more accountability journalism under deadline. Join Hacks/Hackers at The New York Times for […]
The rapid diffusion of AI and the emergence of AI agents capable of independently accessing tools, initiating processes, and acting on users’ behalf may fundamentally reshape how information and economic activity are organized online. These developments are raising new questions about market power, entry, innovation, and control across the technology stack. At the same time, […]
Explore how AI’s role in classrooms is being shaped in New York City and beyond with Coding Kids author Natasha Singer and other panelists at this discussion presented by the research and policy institute Data & Society. This event will take place in person and online at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor. This […]
The AI Hype, Hope and Humanity (AI HHH) Festival is a space for genuine exchange, where knowledge flows in every direction, and where responsibility is treated not as an abstract principle, but as something negotiated in practice. Over three days, the festival moves through a deliberate arc: Societal challenges and current uses of AI across domains including work, health, education, […]
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 […]
As AI moves beyond language into systems that can perceive, understand, and act in the physical world, a new frontier is emerging: world models—AI systems that build and maintain working representations of real environments to predict how they change in response to action. Building upon a recent Stanford HAI Policy Brief, this seminar will examine […]
The Stanford Tech Impact and Policy Center will host the fifth annual Trust and Safety Research Conference on October 1-2, 2026 at Stanford University. The conference brings together trust and safety researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, civil society, and government to advance research in trust and safety while fostering the exchange of ideas across […]
The next edition of the b° future festival will take place from October 1-3, 2026. The b° future festival creates time and space for anyone and everyone who wants to rethink journalism. It blends an industry conference with a civic festival for a unique three-day event in the heart of Bonn that revolves around one key […]
Artificial intelligence is transforming how researchers collect, analyze, and learn from data. As AI systems become increasingly integrated into scientific discovery, business decision-making, and policy analysis, they are reshaping both the questions researchers can ask and the methods they use to answer them. Hosted by the Stanford Causal Science Center and the Graduate School of […]
The 50th Anniversary for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S): calls for presentations, panels, and adjacent gatherings that engage our theme of TechnoPower. Science, technology, and innovation are not neutral; as STS scholars, we understand them as socially, culturally, and economically constructed and deeply entangled with a specific form of technoscientific power. […]
A.I. is inevitable — at least, that is what we would be led to believe from the nonstop media coverage, podcast interviews with tech billionaires, and the advertisements interspersed in our TikTok and Reels doomscrolling sessions. But what does it mean to bring a critical eye to Generative A.I.? Why should the average person care […]
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 […]
AoIR 2026 — Mexico City We are thrilled to be in Mexico City, Mexico for AoIR2026! #AoIR2026 will be held at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Mexico City, from October 14th to 17th, 2026. It will also be AoIR’s second bilingual conference, after last year’s successful piloting in Niteroí, Brazil. This Year’s Theme: Regenerations Regeneration(s) […]
In 2025, Oxford University Press launched a new type of resource: Oxford Intersections. Oxford Intersections reflects the critical role that peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research plays in helping policy- and decision-makers tackle the world’s most complex and urgent environmental, cultural, political, and social challenges. Topics of Interest: We invite abstracts (by Oct. 20) for the Social Media […]
The fifth edition of the Africa Facts Summit will take place on 21 – 22 October 2026 in Johannesburg, South Africa – bringing together fact-checkers, journalists, researchers, technologists, policymakers, and civil society actors at a critical moment for information integrity on the continent. A critical moment for information integrity The 2026 summit comes at a […]
The Open Technology Research (OTR) Symposium, themed “Shaping the Open Transition”, moves from diagnosis to action: from mapping the landscape to charting the path forward. With keynotes anchored in what is already working, and sessions designed to translate research directly into policy recommendations and practice, the event is both a stocktaking exercise and a forward-looking […]
The Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) is pleased to announce the Investigative Journalism Week (IJ WEEK), a new, multi-day online gathering of journalists featuring more than 35 panels, workshops, and networking sessions with over 100 speakers. The sessions will be devoted to various themes, including tech, the environment, corruption, and money laundering, to name a […]
Barcelona shows that another technological model is possible. The second edition of Open Tech Week is back, the week that consolidates the city as a global benchmark in open technologies, digital rights and democratic innovation. This second edition brings together public institutions, digital communities, academia and civil society around a shared conviction: technology must serve […]
Mozilla Festival, aka MozFest, is three days of bold conversations, hands-on building, and ideas worth traveling for. This year, MozFest is taking over Barcelona’s Recinte Fabra i Coats—a former industrial complex turned cultural powerhouse—from Wednesday, October 28 through Friday, October 30, 2026. We are partnering with the City of Barcelona and taking part in Open […]
On October 29, All Tech Is Human will convene the Responsible Tech Summit at The New York Times Center in Manhattan, bringing together leaders from across the Responsible Tech ecosystem for a day of dialogue, collaboration, and action. The summit will serve as the premier gathering for the global Responsible Tech movement, connecting voices from […]
PAIRSx Public Sector is an open one-day symposium that will be hosted at the Ada Lovelace Institute on 5th November 2026 to explore how public bodies are engaging and involving the public and civil society organisations around their adoption of AI, particularly in the UK. The PAIRSx Public Sector symposium is a spin-out event from […]
Crossing Boundaries: Advancing Global Dialogue and Well-being through Information Research and Practice Globally, societies are confronted with intensifying political polarization, inequities of access to information resources, eroding public trust, and widening disparities in economic, health, and educational opportunity. Rapid technological transformations, including the widespread adoption of digital platforms and artificial intelligence, are changing the ways […]
Young people today navigate an information space shaped by algorithms, platforms and growing disinformation. At the same time, journalists, whose role is essential in verifying facts and ensuring access to reliable information are increasingly exposed to threats, harassment and intimidation. Where journalists are unsafe, disinformation spreads more easily, public trust declines and democratic participation weakens. […]