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Winter school Data, personalization, and the law 2023, 4-8 December 2023, Leiden (NL)
by Tjaša Petročnik 14 Aug '23

14 Aug '23

Dear colleagues, I would like to draw your attention to the winter school we are hosting for PhD students and post-docs interested/working in the field of the (regulation of) digital technologies: Digital Legal Lab (https://www.sectorplandls.nl/) is organising a winter school “Data, personalization, and the law 2023”, together with the Lorentz Center. The winter school will take place from 4 to 8 December 2023 in Leiden, the Netherlands. Its main goal is to do a deep dive into regulation and policy of digital technologies; concretely, we will explore topics related to how digital technologies like algorithms, big data analytics, and automated decision-making affect individuals, markets, and society, and how regulatory and legal regimes are catching up with the technological changes. We are now collecting the applications and encourage early career researchers – PhD students and post-doctoral researchers – from diverse disciplinary and geographical backgrounds to apply. The deadline to apply is 25 August. For more information, see the Digital Legal Lab’s website (https://www.sectorplandls.nl/wordpress/uncategorized/winter-school-applicat…) Please share this announcement widely with those that might be interested in applying! With thanks and kind regards, Tjaša Petročnik, on behalf of the organising committee

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Extended deadline to August 31 for the workshop - The ‘Surveillant Assemblage’ In the Age of AI
by Marie Eneman 14 Aug '23

14 Aug '23

Hi all, with apologies for cross-posting, we want to share that the deadline has been extended to August 31 to submit to following pre-conference workshop. We look forward your extended abstract! Best wishes, Marie, Mikael and Jan We are very excited to announce a call for extended abstracts for the pre-conference workshop - The ‘Surveillant Assemblage’ In the Age of AI - 14 November 2023 in Malmö Sweden and deadline to submit extended abstract of 1000-1200 words (excluding the reference list) is August 31. We will have a very interesting key speaker Professor Bernd Carsten Stahl, Professor of Critical Research in Technology at the School of Computer Science of the University of Nottingham and former Director of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Link to the pre-conference workshop: https://wasp-hs.org/the-surveillant-assemblage-in-the-age-of-ai/ Link to the main conference - Living with AI – Critical Questions for the Social Sciences and Humanities 14-15 November in Malmö Sweden: https://wasp-hs.org/events/ai-for-humanity-and-society-2023/ Please feel free to contact Marie if you have any questions. There is no cost to participate in the workshop and conference, apart from possible travel and accommodation costs. WASP-HS is considering publishing a collection of papers from the workshops as a joint volume. Organizing Committee: Marie Eneman, Mikael Gustavsson & Jan Ljungberg Department of Applied Information Technology University of Gothenburg, Sweden Marie Eneman (Docent/Associate Professor) University of Gothenburg Department of Applied IT 412 96 Gothenburg Switch Board: 0046 31 7860000 Mobile Phone: 0046 709758844 Note: I sometimes send emails outside of office hours for my convenience but please reply at your convenience during your usual working hours.

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Can Artificial Intelligence Help Counter Hate? Decoloniality and Online Extreme Speech - Lecture with Sahana Udupa
by Carol Parreiras 14 Aug '23

14 Aug '23

Hello list members, Tomorrow, August 15, we will have the lecture "Can Artificial Intelligence Help Counter Hate? Decoloniality and Online Extreme Speech", with Sahana Udupa. The lecture will take place at University of São Paulo - Brazil, at 4 PM (UTC - 3). For those who are not in Brazil, we will have a live streaming. Online transmission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd7OcwxGuNQ Can Artificial Intelligence Help Counter Hate? Decoloniality and Online Extreme Speech Is the global upsurge in online vitriol aimed against vulnerable people a result of social media affordances and the actions of villainous populists? Departing from a technocentric perspective and leader centered analysis, this talk will present the theory of “extreme speech”, highlighting the grave consequences of the “ordinariness” of hate in contemporary digital environments and their deep roots in the enduring structures of coloniality. I will argue that historically reinforced patterns of extreme speech and the varieties of digital practice that animate hate actors pose significant challenges to the optimism around AI-based content moderation efforts. The talk will draw from the chapter “Extreme” in the just published book, “Digital Unsettling: Decoloniality and Dispossession in the Age of Social Media” (co-authored with Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan, New York University Press, 2023) and the article, “Ethical Scaling for Content Moderation <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20539517231172424#:~:text=As%…>: Extreme Speech and the (In)Significance of Artificial Intelligence” (co-authored with Antonis Maronikolakis and Axel Wisiorek, *Big Data & Society*). I will highlight extreme speech examples from Germany, Brazil and India. *Bio* Sahana Udupa is professor of media anthropology at the University of Munich (LMU München), where she has founded the For Digital Dignity program with an international network of researchers, policy makers and civil society groups to collaboratively imagine and foster enabling spaces of political expression online. *Udupa is the* recipient of the prestigious Joan Shorenstein Fellowship at Harvard University, European Research Council Grant Awards and Francqui Chair (Belgium). Most recently, she delivered a keynote address at the United Nations Peacekeeping International Symposium on Digital Transformation based on the research paper on digital hate she wrote for the UN. -- Carolina Parreiras Pesquisadora do Departamento de Antropologia da USP - Researcher at Department of Anthropology - USP Coordenadora do LETEC <https://instagram.com/letec_usp?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=> - Laboratório Etnográfico de Estudos Tecnológicos e Digitais Membro do Comitê de Comunicação e Divulgação Científica (ABA)

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Job ad for Postdoc and PhD researcher in an ERC funded project
by Patricia Rossini 12 Aug '23

12 Aug '23

Hello AoIR-Ls! I’m sharing two funded positions — postdoc and PhD -- on behalf of my colleague Dr Antonis Kalogeropoulos. Please circulate with potential candidates! ------ We have opened two positions for a post-doctoral researcher and a PhD researcher in an ERC funded project related to social inequalities in news use. We are seeking a full-time post-doctoral researcher to lead and conduct research in an ERC-funded research project related to social inequalities in news use (starting in October/Fall 2023). Our Offer A full-time, VUB postdoc contract for 3 years. A dynamic and stimulating work environment with young scientists and experienced senior researchers in an international setting. Opportunity to take a leading role in an ambitious ERC project. A unique spirit of enthusiasm, excellence and solidarity in our research center. Generous funding for conference travel. Flexible working conditions with opportunity for personal initiative. Attractive remuneration package with extra-legal benefits according to the applicable VUB pay scales Job requirements PhD degree in communication science, political science, or a relevant domain (e.g. sociology, internet studies). Strong background in quantitative research methods and an ambition to continue to develop these skills. Strong interest in news consumption or the diffusion of political information. Excellent communication skills and proficiency in English (oral and written). Ability to work proactively and independently. Additionally, we would like it if you have: Experience with handling passive tracking data. Computational social science skills. Experience with supervising junior colleagues or doctoral students. More information can be found here: https://smit.vub.ac.be/vacancy/postdoctoral-researcher-in-news-use-and-poli… Deadline: August 31 We are seeking a full-time fully-funded Ph.D. researcher to lead and conduct research in an ERC-funded research project related to news use and political ifnromation (starting in October/Fall 2023). The project is hosted by the research center SMIT (Studies in Media Innovation and Technology) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Your research will be part of the ERC-funded project “INEQNEWS – Social Inequalities in Digital News Consumption”. This is a four-year research project aiming to understand and alleviate inequalities in digital news consumption with a focus on gender, age and social class. Our offer The opportunity to work for four years full-time on a PhD track. A dynamic and stimulating work environment with young scientists and experienced senior researchers in an international setting. An opportunity to take a leading role in the publications of an ambitious ERC project. A unique spirit of enthusiasm, excellence and solidarity in our research center. An annually renewed bursary contract for four years according to the applicable VUB pay scales for pre-doc bursary researchers. Generous funding for conference travel. Flexible working conditions with opportunity for personal initiative. Job requirements A master’s degree in communication science or a relevant domain (e.g., political science, sociology, internet studies, economics). A background in quantitative or qualitative research methods and an ambition to continue to develop these skills further in a relatively short timeframe. Strong interest in news audiences, public opinion studies or the diffusion of political information. Excellent communication skills and proficiency in English (oral and written) Analytical thinking and strong communication skills in English (including academic writing skills). More information can be found here: https://smit.vub.ac.be/vacancy/ph-d-researcher-in-news-use-and-political-in… Deadline: August 31 --- Dr Patrícia Rossini Senior Lecturer in Communication, Media & Democracy School of Social and Political Sciences University of Glasgow

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Conference on Harmful Online Communication (CHOC2023), 16-17 Nov, Cologne Germany & online
by Weller, Katrin 11 Aug '23

11 Aug '23

Dear all, maybe the following event is of interest to some of you. Best wishes, Katrin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONFERENCE ON HARMFUL ONLINE COMMUNICATION (CHOC2023) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Location: Cologne, Germany, and online Conference Dates: 16.-17. November 2023 Deadline for Submission: 30.08.2023 (AoE) Website: https://www.gesis.org/forschung/tagungen-und-konferenzen/gesis-tagungen/con… The event is funded by the Thyssen Foundation. ----------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT: A two-day hybrid conference with sessions focused on different aspects of Harmful Online Communication and talks from leading experts. The main event will take place in Cologne, Germany, with the option of online participation. ORGANIZED BY: Katrin Weller, Pascal Siegers, Indira Sen, Christina Dahn (GESIS Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne) Contact: css.events(a)gesis.org<mailto:css.events@gesis.org> ----------------- OUTLINE: ---------------- Harmful Online Communication refers to a variety of ongoing activities on communication platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and many more. Independent of the platform, harm can, for example, occur in the form of hate speech towards different groups, including racist or sexist content. Harmful online communication can also include aspects of mis- and disinformation, or threats of physical violence. Depending on the type of content, different strategies may be needed to detect it and to apply appropriate counter measures. The aim of this conference is to bring together a group of experts in computer-based detection and analysis of harmful online communication to discuss new developments in the field. The focus will lie on theoretical concept definitions, data quality, and comparative measurement tools. This will benefit the field of harmful online communication studies by building a community around validity and reliability and creating a baseline that can inform the building of comparative research and shared knowledge. The output of the conference will inform the future work in Computational Social Sciences and help more traditional social scientists to improve their use of data from online platforms. -------------------------------------------------- CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS: --------------------------------------------------- - Isabelle Augenstein, University of Copenhagen - Leon Derczynski, ITU Copenhagen & University of Washington - Iginio Gagliardone, University of the Witwatersrand - Libby Hemphill, University of Michigan - Homa Hosseinmardi, University of Pennsylvania - Tetsuro Kobayashi, Waseda University - Anne Lauscher, University of Hamburg - Philip Lorenz-Spreen, Max-Planck-Institute Berlin - Ilia Markov, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam - Diana Rieger, Ludwig-Maximilians-University München - Björn Ros, University of Edinburgh - Mattia Samory, Sapienza University of Rome - Francielle Vargas, University of São Paulo --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR ABSTRACTS (for ONSITE POSTER SESSION in Cologne) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHOC2023 welcomes proposals for an onsite poster session on 16 November 2023 at the Conference on Harmful Online Communication in person in Cologne. This conference seeks to bring together a community of researchers from the (Computational) Social Sciences and related disciplines to discuss data quality, methods, ethics, theoretical work, and practical challenges related to harmful online communication. Topics may include, but are not limited to: * Quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods research on topics subsumed under harmful online communication including but not limited to abusive language, hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, and online harassment * Computer-mediated approaches for tackling such types of communication such as content moderation and policy making. * Computational methods for research on harmful online communication, such as network analysis, textual and image analysis, large language models and machine learning. * Resource creation for studying harmful online communication such as datasets, codebooks, annotation tasks, and taxonomies * Theoretical discussions and practical concepts related to countering misinformation and harmful online communication. * Ethical and legal aspects of Harmful Online Communication research. * Bias and inequalities of (automated) hate speech detection, datasets, and analysis methods * Development of communal resources in Harmful Online Communication research Presentations at the poster session can be of published work, in preparation for publication or work in-progress. Submissions are open to researchers from all career stages, including PhD candidates and Master students. Abstracts of up to 500 words (excluding references) should be submitted via email to css.events(a)gesis.org<mailto:css.events@gesis.org> until 30 August 2023 (AoE). ------------------------- PARTICIPATION: ------------------------- PLEASE NOTE:The number of poster presentations is limited, given that it will only take place in person in Cologne. In case of a higher number of high-quality submissions, we may have to limit both the number of accepted posters and the registration to first authors of the posters. Co-authors and other attendees will be admitted if space permits and potentially be wait-listed. Online participation will be available for everyone interested, but registration will be required to receive the access information. POSTER PRESENTERS NEED TO PRESENT IN PERSON. REGISTRATION FEE: Eur 60,- for on-site participation in Cologne / free online participation (poster presenters need to present in-person) ---- Dr. Katrin Weller (she/her) Team Lead "Digital Society Observatory" Dept. Computational Social Science GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Unter Sachsenhausen 6-8 D-50667 Cologne https://www.gesis.org/en/institute/staff/person/katrin.weller

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New Book: The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet
by Avery Dame-Griff 10 Aug '23

10 Aug '23

All, Since it’s now officially out, I wanted to share the announcement for my new book, *The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet*, which might be of interest to folks on this list: https://nyupress.org/9781479818310/the-two-revolutions/. If you order it through the publisher, NYU Press, they have a 30% off discount code (NYUAU30). *Blurb: **The Two Revolutions* explores how the rise of the internet shaped transgender identity and activism from the 1980s to the present. Through extensive archival research and media archeology, Avery Dame-Griff reconstructs the manifold digital networks of transgender activists, cross-dressing computer hobbyists, and others interested in gender nonconformity who incited the second revolution of the title: the ascendance of “transgender” as an umbrella identity in the mid-1990s. Dame-Griff argues that digital communications sparked significant momentum within what would become the transgender movement, but also further cemented existing power structures. Covering both a historical period that is largely neglected within the history of computing, and the poorly understood role of technology in queer and trans social movements, *The Two Revolutions* offers a new understanding of both revolutions—the internet’s early development and the structures of communication that would take us to today’s tipping point of trans visibility politics. Through a history of how trans people online exploited different digital infrastructures in the early days of the internet to build a community, *The Two Revolutions* tells a crucial part of trans history itself. --- Please feel free to reach out if you’re thinking about teaching with it or interested in reviewing it! It’d be a great fit not just for WGSS or LGBTQ Studies courses, but also topics courses on political organizing, social movements, online communities, or web history. And if you do use any part of it to teach, I encourage you to check out the Queer Digital History Project’s Exhibits (https://queerdigital.com/exhibits) and Teaching Guides (https://queerdigital.com/teaching) which offer resources and ideas for teaching about some of the topics covered in the book. Best, Avery Dame-Griff -- Avery Dame-Griff (he/him/his) Lecturer, Women's and Gender Studies (Gonzaga University) Author, *The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet* (NYU Press, August 2023) Curator, Queer Digital History Project <http://queerdigital.com/> averydame.net

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Custom Project Support Services - Twitter/X Data
by Stuart Shulman 10 Aug '23

10 Aug '23

For now, we are able to support custom research projects using Twitter/X data from the last 12 months. If you would like to learn more about our fee-for-service offer, please book a meeting to discuss the options. We provide DiscoverText software for free via the Web to academics and charge hourly rates for project management and data access services. I cannot say how long the Twitter/X data access will remain in place; it is there now and robust. Book a meeting here: https://calendly.com/discovertext With DiscoverText, you can search, filter, cluster, sample, human code and machine classify hundreds of thousands or millions of Tweets. Teams build reusable, transparent, shareable, crowdsource annotation models. Project managers measure and report inter-rater reliability. Leaders or groups adjudicate human disagreements to improve human and machine learning. This previous feature (adjudication) is by far the most important (and least used/understood) piece in our methods toolkit. It is the reason I got into building software. When two or more annotators disagree, an opportunity to learn, evolve, and grow the team and model emerges. The beneficial byproducts of iterative annotation/adjudication cycles are noteworthy. In DiscoverText, Tweets are displayed in the Twitter/X live display with media previews and images embedded in the interface. Replies show the original Tweet and the reply in the display. Deleted and suspended posts are not displayed; we check in real time. Numerous list members have either used or contributed to the development of the toolkit going back to 2011. The tools were derived from a decade of NSF-funded interdisciplinary research (2000-2010) with computer scientists, statisticians, social scientists. If you want to get a Twitter/X project up and running, we can help. Twitter/X is awash in things that should be studied and better understood inside and beyond academia. Phenomena like this: https://discovertext.com/mentions/ If you want to write a paper lamenting how free Twitter data is gone and only free data will suffice, I suggest talking to everyone who ever put a serious survey in the field, ran focus groups, or did interviews, about the nature of free versus earned data. We wrote grant proposals for all of that. A solution is on the table; there are others. It is factually inaccurate, though fashionable, to say the Twitter/X data is not accessible, for now. ~Stu --- Dr. Stuart W. Shulman Founder and CEO, Texifter Editor Emeritus, Journal of Information Technology & Politics

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WEBCAST AUG 10 – topDNS Best Practice Series: How to investigate Online Abuse with Free Tools
by Joly MacFie 10 Aug '23

10 Aug '23

This is under way. REAL TIME TEXT https://bit.ly/4453pl2 [image: isoc.live] <https://isoc.live/16772>On *Thursday August 10 2023* at *17:00pm CEST* (15:00 UTC) *Realtime Register <https://realtimeregister.com/>* and *eco's topDNS Initiative <https://international.eco.de/topics/names-numbers/topdns/>* host a webinar '*topDNS Best Practice Series: How to investigate Online Abuse with Free Tools <https://international.eco.de/event/topdns-best-practice-series-how-to-inves…>*'. This is the third in a series of topDNS best practice webinars to showcase what the domain name industry is doing to fight DNS abuse. The webinar is aimed at beginners but is also interesting for advanced abuse desk managers, and will show an approach to get started quickly using free tools, so that abuse service staff can take action and understand some basic techniques . This is not intended to encourage a 'do-it-yourself' approach over the use of commercial products. However, a basic knowledge of investigations and processes involved is useful for anyone working in the field of online abuse mitigation. *SPEAKER* *Theo Geurts*, CIPP/E Privacy & GRC Officer, Realtime Register *HOST* *Lars Steffen*, Director International, eco – Association of the Internet Industry *LIVESTREAM http://livestream.com/internetsociety/topdns-freetools <http://livestream.com/internetsociety/topdns-freetools>* *PARTICIPATE VIA GOTOWEBINAR https://bit.ly/453gZ9X <https://bit.ly/453gZ9X>* *REAL TIME TEXT* (see ISOC.LIVE <https://isoc.live/16772>) *TWITTER #topDNS <https://bit.ly/3WTJqnn> #dnsabuse @eco_EN Theo Geurts @realtime_reg #DNS* *MASTODON #topDNS <https://mastodon.social/tags/topDNS>* *SIMULCAST CHANNELS* *https://twitter.com/ISOC_Live <https://twitter.com/ISOC_Live>* *https://www.twitch.tv/isoclive <https://www.twitch.tv/isoclive>* *https://www.facebook.com/liveisoc/ <https://www.facebook.com/liveisoc/>* *ARCHIVE* *https://archive.org/details/topdns-freetools <https://archive.org/details/topdns-freetools>* https://isoc.live/16772 - -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

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Extended CFP deadline to August 31 for the workshop - The ‘Surveillant Assemblage’ In the Age of AI
by Marie Eneman 10 Aug '23

10 Aug '23

Hi all, We have received requests to extend the deadline due to holiday time for many and have therefore decided to extend the deadline to August 31 to submit extended abstracts to the following workshop. We are very excited to announce a call for extended abstracts for the pre-conference workshop - The ‘Surveillant Assemblage’ In the Age of AI - 14 November 2023 in Malmö Sweden and deadline to submit extended abstract of 1000-1200 words (excluding the reference list) is August 31. We will have a very interesting key speaker Professor Bernd Carsten Stahl, Professor of Critical Research in Technology at the School of Computer Science of the University of Nottingham and former Director of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Link to the pre-conference workshop: https://wasp-hs.org/the-surveillant-assemblage-in-the-age-of-ai/ Link to the main conference - Living with AI – Critical Questions for the Social Sciences and Humanities 14-15 November in Malmö Sweden: https://wasp-hs.org/events/ai-for-humanity-and-society-2023/ Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. There is no cost to participate in the workshop and conference, apart from possible travel and accommodation costs. WASP-HS is considering publishing a collection of papers from the workshops as a joint volume. We look forward your extended abstract! Organizing Committee: Marie Eneman, Mikael Gustavsson & Jan Ljungberg Department of Applied Information Technology University of Gothenburg, Sweden Best Wishes/Marie Marie Eneman (Docent/Associate Professor) University of Gothenburg Department of Applied IT 412 96 Gothenburg Switch Board: 0046 31 7860000 Mobile Phone: 0046 709758844 Note: I sometimes send emails outside of office hours for my convenience but please reply at your convenience during your usual working hours.

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Space is running out! Sign up to run your Wikipedia assignment this fall today!
by Helaine Blumenthal 09 Aug '23

09 Aug '23

Space is running out! Ensure your spot by signing up today to run your Wikipedia assignment this fall! Find out how you and your students can change the world one word at a time by visiting teach.wikiedu.org <https://wikiedu.org/teach-with-wikipedia/>. Attend an upcoming workshop! Attend <https://wikiedu.org/webinars/>one of our upcoming workshops to learn more about this unique pedagogical opportunity. Click here <https://wikiedu.org/webinars/> to register for a session. The next one will be Tuesday, August 16 at 2 PM Pacific. Wiki Education's support is fully funded, and there are no fees to participate. The program is open to post-secondary institutions in the U.S. and Canada. Empower your students to become public scholars this year! -- Helaine Blumenthal,Ph.D. (she/her) Senior Program Manager Wiki Education teach.wikiedu.org <https://wikiedu.org/teach-with-wikipedia/> Twitter <https://twitter.com/WikiEducation?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7C…>, Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/WikiEducationFoundation/>

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