The #AoIR2025 organizing committee is pleased to announce R. Marie Santini as our Keynote Speaker. Dr. Santini is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She is the founder and director of NetLab - Laboratory for Internet and Social Network Studies, at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. NetLab researches the phenomenon of digital disinformation and its social consequences to inform public policies that promote ethics in governance, transparency, and integrity of digital media in Brazil. Marie is a CNPq Research Fellow, an Associate Researcher at the European Centre of Excellence VOX-Pol; a member of the expert committee of the International Observatory on Information and Democracy (OID); and a researcher on the Scientific Committee of the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE). Dr. Santini’s talk is titled *The Digital Break: When Big Tech (re)Fused the Global North and South. * The regulation of Big Tech companies has become one of the most central geopolitical, economic, and social issues in Western countries. These corporations have intensified their efforts in lobbying, attacking researchers, engaging in commercial and constitutional violations, disregarding local laws, and abusively collecting personal data, all while profiting from fraudulent advertising. This has caused significant harm to their users, especially in the Global South. Such actions largely aim at two major objectives that together ensure the perpetuation of their hegemonic powers: maximizing profits and preventing any type of regulation, whether local or global. Brazil has played a significant role in attempting to create the conditions of possibility for Big Tech's regulation in the Global South. Here, the political confrontation has taken the form of hard disputes in public opinion over media outlets. It has also involved the judiciary through the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court, the executive branch through the government, as well as provoking strong engagement in academia and civil society to produce evidence and advocacy on this issue. Nonetheless, the Global South faces additional and more severe challenges in confronting Big Tech: beyond a colonial extractivist posture by these North American companies, which typically have used Brazil as a laboratory, researchers still have to contend with a lack of data, reduced transparency and limited funding for research. Nevertheless, the strategic political and economic approach of Big Tech, characterized by non-compliance with laws and alliances with authoritarian governments attempting to shut down research, has caused instability worldwide, in both the Global North and South, for those who work with empirical research, social data science, and the social impacts of Big Tech. For the Global North, this conjuncture of data deserts and resource scarcity may represent a rupture in established dynamics; for the Global South, it is a continuation of pre-existing challenges. This reality, nonetheless, places both the Global North and South before common obstacles, which can generate opportunities for new research perspectives and for robust global academic and civil society articulation in confronting Big Tech worldwide. The Keynote will be held Wednesday, 15 October 2025 at the Oscar Niemeyer Popular Theater, R. Jorn. Rogério Coelho Neto, s/n - Centro, Niterói - RJ, 24020-011 at 18:00 Brasília Time (BRT). The event will be live streamed. Details on how to join the live stream will be available closer to the event. There are two different registrations for this conference – one for in person attendees and one for remote attendees. In person only: https://members.aoir.org/event-6216401 Online only: https://members.aoir.org/event-6216484 **Please note** *All presenting authors and Doctoral Colloquium attendees must be fully registered and paid by August 1st deadline to be included in the 2025 program. *