Jeff Howard was invited to write a post for the Public Ethics blog evaluating the various recent changes to Meta’s policies on issues such as fact-checking. You are read the post here:

Content Moderation Makeover: Meta’s changes are a mixed bag

Jeffrey Howard (UCL) and Maxime Lepoutre (Reading) collaborated on a submission to the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, which put out a call for evidence on the role of misinformation in leading to the 2024 summer riots — and how the Online Safety Act could be used to reduce the risk that such incidents will be incited online.

See here for our submission.

You can also see a separate submission by Digital Speech Lab Faculty Fellow Beatriz Kira (Sussex) here.

Jeff Howard spoke on a panel (Strengthening Content Moderation through Expert Input) at the Internet Governance Forum in Riyadh, alongside Emilar Gandhi (Meta), Conor Sanchez (Meta), Naomi Shiffman (Oversight Board), and Tomiwa Ilori (B-Tech Africa Project by UN Human Rights).

In its recent decision on how Meta should govern content depicting real-world violence, the Oversight Board approvingly cited our submission, in particular concerning problems with Meta’s newsworthiness allowance.

You can find the Board’s decision here.

You can see our Lab’s submission here.

Jeff Howard gave a keynote address (“The Imperative of Moderation”) at the conference “Facilitating Constructive Dialogue: Toxic Online Speech” hosted by the Content Moderation Lab, part of the TUM ThinkTank at the School of Politics and Public Policy at the Technical University of Munich. The discussants were Rebekka Weiß (Microsoft), Till Guttenberger (Bavarian State Ministry of Justice), and Miguelángel Verde (Wikimedia Foundation).

The Digital Speech Lab organised a one-day event featuring early- and mid-career scholars presenting new work on the legal and political philosophy of online speech. Participants included Sarah Fisher (Cardiff), Iason Gabriel (Google DeepMind), Jonathan Gingerich (Rutgers), Kai Spiekermann (LSE), David Axelsen (Essex), Jeffrey Howard (UCL), Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt (UCL), Tena Thau (UCL), Robert SImpson (UCL), and Kyle Van Oosterum (Oxford).

Jeffrey Howard presented his paper “Moderation by Machine” at the annual conference of the American Political Science Association in Philadelphia.

The Lab has collaborated on submitting a public comment to the Oversight Board, regarding the handling of non-consensual intimate deepfakes.

Our comment is published here. 

The Board’s decision, which is broadly line with our recommendations, is here.  

The Digital Speech Lab has submitted a public comment to the Oversight Board, regarding the handling of electoral misinformation (and other content undermining electoral integrity).

Our comment is published here.

The Board’s decision, which broadly comports with our suggestions, is here.

Dr. Sarah Fisher presented her paper “Framing ourselves online” at a workshop on the pragmatics and epistemology of online communication, which was co-hosted by the LOGOS research group in logic, language, and cognition, based at Barcelona University, and the Philosophy Department at Cardiff University.

Dr. Kiran Arabaghatta Basavaraj presented a paper at the 81st Annual Midwest Political Science Association (MSPA) Conference in Chicago, USA. The paper titled ““One Earth, One Family, One Future” The G20 Summit in India 2023” examined Facebook use and user engagement with posts during the G20 event to understand digital communication and new public diplomacy, and its implications for electoral gain.

Sarah Fisher and Jeffrey Howard presented their paper, co-authored with Beatriz Kira, on “Moderation Misinformation: The Challenge of Generative AI” at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project: https://law.yale.edu/isp/events/propaganda-and-emerging-technologies

Dr. Sarah Fisher presented her paper “Large language models and their big bullshit potential” at the University of Reading’s Visiting Speaker Series in Philosophy.

In its recent report overviewing Meta’s policy on manipulated media, the Oversight Board cited the UCL Digital Speech Lab three times, largely adopting the conclusions that we recommended.

For our submission to the Board, see here.

For the Board’s report, see here.

Jeffrey Howard presented his paper “Moderating Machines” to the Center on Cybersecurity at NYU-Abu Dhabi..

The Digital Speech Lab and Demos ran a closed discussion with a range of policymakers, regulators, industry professionals, and civil society organisations on the challenges facing our digital information system from generative AI. The event had two core conversations - the first focusing on the obligations of companies producing public-facing generative AI tools, the second focusing on the downstream obligations of social media platforms.

Louisa Bartolo (Research Associate) has co-authored a Lawfare article “Exploring Tradeoffs in Ranking and Recommendation Algorithms” with senior policy staff at Meta:

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/exploring-tradeoffs-in-ranking-and-recommendation-algorithms

Dr. Kiran Arabaghatta Basavaraj gives a lecture in a Half Day Short Course on “Public Opinion, Social Media, Misinformation & Elections” during the APSA Annual Meeting.

This short course brings together scholars and practitioners conducting research on public opinion, social media, misinformation and elections, to discuss the latest research and the challenges and opportunities working in Global South countries.

Topics Include:

1. Deliberative Polling

2. Polling and Forecasting Elections

3. Misinformation Research & Survey Experiments

4. Meta (Facebook) Ad Library

5. Social Media and Political Advertising