IEEE Digital Platforms and Societal Harms Conference

With the pervasiveness of digital platforms and social media, digital information can be easily created and shared online by individuals, including people and bots, which significantly changes how humans access, perceive, search and consume information. More people are making their economic, political, health and daily life decisions by referring to online information due to its convenience and low cost. Yet, these digital platforms have become a battleground for bad actors to fabricate and propagate massive amounts of harmful information, including hate speech, discrimination, violent extremism, child sexual abuse, disinformation and misinformation, with massive online engagement. The uncontrolled rapid propagation of such harmful information can lead to severe consequences in human society, including hostile online environments, damaging people’s confidence in trusting online information, and even endangering people’s lives.

Addressing the creation, propagation and engagement of harmful digital information, however, is a complex problem that requires broad collaboration among various stakeholders, including technologists, law and policy makers, non-profit organizations, private sectors, and end users. There is an emerging need for these stakeholders and researchers of multiple disciplines (e.g., computing, communication, journalism, psychology, law, public policy, etc.) to have a joint forum to understand the challenges, exchange ideas, and explore possible solutions to today’s information warfare.

SSIT is a financial co-sponsor for the 2024 Conference and a partner for the 2023 Tech Forum.