Digital technologies should be good for people, societies and the planet, but there is ample evidence that they are often not. Social scientists, humanities scholars and others have provided rich empirical evidence of the harms and inequities that can result from digital tech deployments. For example, dating apps are used to harass and control as well as to enable romantic connections. Social media platforms deny users access to communities of wellbeing support in the process of moderating content to limit self-harm. Generative AI can provide creative assistance and make skills accessible, but it also hallucinates, infringes copyright and results in job losses. And there are environmental costs from data centres’ energy consumption and the global appetite for new devices.

The negative consequences of tech deployments make clear the digital society we do not want. The next step is to ask what a good digital society looks like, a question which is attracting growing interest around the globe. What does a good society look like? is a two-day conference which addresses this question. It takes place in Sheffield, UK, on 10-11 June 2027. The conference represents the culmination of the five-year long Digital Good Network, which is collectively concerned with the notion of the ‘digital good’: both what it means, and how we achieve it.

Keynote speaker
We are delighted to announce that Professor Ruha Benjamin, transdisciplinary scholar, writer, educator, and cultural worker, and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, will give the keynote address at the conference. Her work is a major source of inspiration for our own, especially her (2019) invitation to "Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within". She is also Founding Director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab, and author of four books, Imagination: A Manifesto (2024),Viral Justice (2022), Race After Technology (2019), and People’s Science (2013), and editor of Captivating Technology (2019).

Plenary speakers will include
Jean Burgess, Distinguished Professor of Digital Media, Queensland University of Technology and Associate Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society
Rachel Coldicutt OBE, Founder and Executive Director of Careful Industries
Susan Halford, Professor of Sociology, University of Bristol and Director of the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures

Details
When: Thursday 10 and Friday 11 June 2027
Where: Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Participation fee: £150 full fee / £100 for PhD students or those without institutional support. The fee covers conference attendance, refreshments and lunches during the event and an evening reception on the first day. Travel, accommodation and evening meals are not covered.