The annual Web Science Trust (WST) Test of Time Award has been presented to Nasir Naveed, Thomas Gottron, Jérôme Kunegis, and Arifah Che Alhadi for their paper titled “Bad news travel fast: A content-based analysis of interestingness on twitter”. The authors are the fifth group of researchers to receive the WST Test of Time Award, […]

Oshani, thanks for speaking to me today, and congratulations on your appointment as deputy-chair of WSTNet – I know we are all delighted to have you as part of the senior leadership team. A. Thanks Ian – it’s a great honour, and I’m really looking forward to it. Q. So for some background can you […]

Prof. James Hendler awarded the AAAI Feigenbaum Prize Professor James Hendler has been awarded the prestigious 2025 AAAI Feigenbaum Award for his groundbreaking contributions to knowledge representation, planning, and the Semantic Web.  The award was presented to Professor Hendler during a ceremony at the 39th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-25) in Philadelphia, PA. Prof. Hendler is […]

Generative AI companies are overwhelming Open Access websites with data-harvesting bots, causing outages and straining resources. Cloudflare is fighting back with “AI Labyrinth”, redirecting bots to irrelevant AI-generated information and blacklisting the companies controlling them. While the legality of content harvesting is debated, immediate action is needed to protect OA websites from sabotage. Click to […]

After a very sucessful and highly enjoyable WebSci’25 in the US we are headed back to Europe for WebSci’26. Next year’s conference will take place from May, 26th-29th 2026 in Braunschweig, Germany hosted by the Technical University  (TU) Braunschweig. Keep an eye out for the conference website and check back for news and updates.

California Judge Fines Law Firm $31,000 Over AI-Generated Fake Citations Los Angeles, CA — A federal judge has sanctioned a prominent law firm $31,000 after discovering it submitted a legal brief riddled with fictitious citations generated by artificial intelligence. The controversy began several weeks ago when U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Wilner, based in California, noticed […]

The Steering Committee of ACM WebSci is seeking statements of interest from organizations or consortia interested in hosting the 19th ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci 2027). The conference series usually moves between the continents.  We will accept bids from all locations, but for the 2027 conference, we will give preference to bids within the Americas. We expect […]

The annual Web Science Trust (WST) Test of Time Award has been awarded to Lars Backstrom, Paolo Boldi, Marco Rosa, Johan Ugander and Sebastiano Vigna for their paper titled “Four degrees of separation”. The authors are the fourth group of researchers to receive the WST Test of Time Award, which was announced during the closing […]

The Steering Committee of ACM WebSci is seeking statements of interest from organizations or consortia interested in hosting the 19th ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci 2027). The conference series usually moves between the continents.  We will accept bids from all locations, but for the 2027 conference, we will give preference to bids within the Americas. We expect […]

In a recent paper including authors from WSTnet lab Oxford Internet Instute, the emerging perceptions of relationships with AI systems are explored. As AI systems become more personalized and socially interactive, people are increasingly forming emotional bonds with them—sometimes perceiving them as companions or confidants. This paper argues that traditional AI alignment, which focuses on […]

BREAKING: Google Launches “Google Smell Beta” — Finally Adds Scent to Search April 1, 2025 — Mountain View, CA In a bold move no one sniffed coming, Google has announced the public beta of Google Smell, a revolutionary feature that lets users literally smell their search results. “When people search for ‘freshly baked cookies’ or […]

Generative AI companies are overwhelming Open Access websites with data-harvesting bots, causing outages and straining resources. Cloudflare is fighting back with “AI Labyrinth”, redirecting bots to irrelevant AI-generated information and blacklisting the companies controlling them. While the legality of content harvesting is debated, immediate action is needed to protect OA websites from sabotage. Click to […]

The recent bankruptcy of 23andMe, a prominent consumer genetic testing company, has raised concerns about both data privacy and national security. The company’s financial vulnerability has prompted calls for consumers to delete their DNA data, highlighting the potential risks associated with sharing genetic information. While some experts argue the risk is low, others emphasise the […]

ACM WebSci’25 17th ACM Web Science Conference May 20-24, 2025 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA 17th ACM Web Science Conference 2025 Registration is now open for the 17th ACM Web Science Conference 2025 (WebSci’25), which will be held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, USA from May 20-23, 2025. Early registration is open […]

The UK Government’s Push for a Backdoor in Apple’s Encryption The UK government has repeatedly sought greater access to encrypted communications, arguing that such measures are necessary to combat terrorism, organised crime, and child exploitation. This has put it in direct conflict with technology companies like Apple, which maintain that strong encryption is essential for […]

Prof. James Hendler awarded the AAAI Feigenbaum Prize Professor James Hendler has been awarded the prestigious 2025 AAAI Feigenbaum Award for his groundbreaking contributions to knowledge representation, planning, and the Semantic Web.  The award was presented to Professor Hendler during a ceremony at the 39th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-25) in Philadelphia, PA. Prof. Hendler is […]

ACM WebSci’25 17th ACM Web Science Conference May 20-24, 2025 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA 17th ACM Web Science Conference 2025 Call for PhD Symposium Important dates PhD Symposium proposal submission: March 10, 2025 PhD Symposium proposal notification: April 1, 2025 Camera ready version due: April 8, 2025 PhD Symposium Date: May 20, 2025 Please see […]

A recent landmark court ruling in the copyright case between Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence has fuelled the debate about the future of artificial intelligence and intellectual property rights. The case  establishes legal precedent and opens up areas of risk  for AI companies as they navigate the intricate landscape of copyright law. Thomson Reuters accused […]

The European Commission has awarded the esteemed Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Seal upon the multilingual AI project, OpenEuroLLM. This marks the first time a project funded under the Digital Europe Programme has received this prestigious recognition. STEP is a novel EU initiative aimed at bolstering European industrial competitiveness by supporting critical technologies, particularly […]

Dr Matthew Weber, Professor of Communication in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University has been named as the Chair of the Web Science Trust Network of Labs (WSTNet) effective January 1, 2025. Dr Oshani Seneviratne, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been named as the Deputy Chair. The Web […]

Overview This week, DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, made significant waves in the tech industry with the release of its latest AI model, DeepSeek-R1. The model has garnered attention for its performance and the broader implications of its launch. Billions of dollars were wiped off the value of several prominent US companies reflecting weaker […]

Summary of Pedro Sánchez’s Speech at Davos on Social Media and Democracy Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned that tech billionaires are using social media to undermine democracy. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he argued that platforms designed to connect and empower people now serve to divide society and spread misinformation. He […]

CfA Research Sabbaticals (Fellowships) and Working Groups at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) funds innovative research on the societal opportunities and challenges of digital transformation. We support individual researchers (fellows) and collaborative projects (working groups). Fellowships: Time and Space for Focus and Inspiration A fellowship at […]

Summary: Nvidia Completes $700M Run:ai Acquisition Amid Antitrust Scrutiny Nvidia has successfully completed its $700 million acquisition of Israeli AI startup Run:ai, following a regulatory review by the European Commission. The deal, initially announced in April 2024, faced antitrust scrutiny due to concerns that it could strengthen Nvidia’s dominance in the AI graphics processing unit […]

Whilst countries and tech firms are pouring billions into quantum computing, aiming to unlock its potential for solving problems once deemed impossible, quantum technology is finally shifting from theory to reality and progress is accelerating in fields like cryptography, drug discovery, climate modelling, and financial analysis. In this competitive landscape, Google has unveiled its latest […]

The 2024 U.S. presidential election witnessed notable instances of artificial intelligence (AI) being utilized in both domestic political campaigns and foreign interference efforts. Domestic Use of AI: • Campaign Strategies: Political campaigns employed AI to enhance fundraising by analyzing donor data to identify potential supporters. • AI-Generated Content: The Trump campaign faced criticism for using […]

Call for Papers WebSci’25 – 19th ACM Web Science Conference May 20 – May 23, 2025 New Brunswick, NJ, USA websci25.webscience.org/ Important Dates Sat, November 30, 2024 Paper submission deadline Tue, January 31, 2025 Notification Tue, February 28, 2025 Camera-ready versions due Tue – Friday, May 20 – 23, 2025 Conference dates About the Web […]

The Dutch data protection watchdog has issued facial recognition startup Clearview AI with a fine of 30.5 million euros or $33.7 million over its creation of what the agency called an “illegal database” of billion of photos of faces. The Dutch join the Italians and French who have both successfully fined CLearview for information privacy […]

The ITU writes: We are at a turning point. As Heads of State and Government have recognized in the Global Digital Compact, part of the newly adopted UN Pact for the Future, “the pace and power of emerging technologies are creating new possibilities but also new risks for humanity.” Nowhere is this more evident than […]

The Internet Archive has been hit with a series of DDoS attacks this week that have taken the service offline. At the time of writing the site is back up. It is thought that this is not the first breach according to industry sources who cite a previous incursion which saw the theft over 30 […]

Call for Papers WebSci’25 – 19th ACM Web Science Conference May 20 – May 23, 2025 New Brunswick, NJ, USA https://websci25.webscience.org/ Important Dates Sat, November 30, 2024 Paper submission deadline Tue, January 31, 2025 Notification Tue, February 28, 2025 Camera-ready versions due Tue – Friday, May 20 – 23, 2025 Conference dates About the Web […]

We are pleased to announce the appointment of two new WSTNet members who have been appointed to lead the network. Matthew Weber (new WSTNet Chair) and Oshani Seneviratne (new WSTNet Deputy Chair) are well-known to the community for their excellent work on various WebSci conferences and will help co-ordinate joint activities amongst the members, liaise […]

CfA Research Sabbaticals (Fellowships) and Working Groups at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) funds innovative projects that deal with the social opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation. We support individual researchers and groups. You want to spend a sabbatical in a vibrant interdisciplinary research community? […]

These are the winners of this year’s awards: Annual Test of Time Award: Albert Solé Ribalta (UOC), Manlio De Domenico (UniPD), Sergio Gomez (URV), and Alex Arenas (URV) for their work titled “Centrality rankings in multiplex networks” Best Paper Awards: Best Full Paper: Abdulaziz Almuzaini, David Pennock, and Vivek Singh for their paper titled “Accuracy […]

We sat down with Professor Noshir Contractor to discuss the news of his appointment as the new Executive Director of the Web Science Trust, how we got to this point, and his vision for WST over the coming period.   Ian  Noshir, let me be the latest to congratulate you on your appointment as Executive […]

Pioneers of the internet and web science celebrate 50th Anniversary of the Internet University of Southampton’s Dame Wendy Hall and Sir David Payne, joined an impressive gathering of internet luminaries at an event at the  Royal Society this week to mark 50 years of the internet.  The event was co-organised by the Web Science Institute […]

Many thanks to everyone one who joined us in London for such a special event. Please enjoy a recording of the event below.

The recent stunning AI developments call for fast and vigorous action, free from the illusions of the turn of the 21st century, so that the benevolent potential of these technologies can start being harnessed for the collective good. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western-type liberal representative democracy was no longer considered under threat […]

Northwestern Engineering’s Noshir Contractor has been named Executive Director of the Web Science Trust (WST), effective May 1, 2024. Contractor is the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the McCormick School of Engineering, the Northwestern School of Communication, and the Kellogg School of Management, and director of the Science of […]

Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres has posted a warning regarding “a dystopian AI future”  and points to the upcoming UN conference: Summit of the Future. Read more

Summaries of the latest Brave Conversations – hosted at WebSci’24 in Stuttgart are now on-line. Please click to read more..

WebSci’24 keynote talks have been kindly released for public catch-up viewing by the ACM.  Please note this is a playlist of several talks.

Southampton WSTNet lab the Web Science Institute have released an annual e-Report.

Young voters in key election battlegrounds are being recommended fake AI-generated videos featuring party leaders, misinformation, and clips littered with abusive comments, the BBC has found. With TikTok emerging as a new social media battleground in this election, the political parties have begun a war of memes on the app in a bid to reach […]

The EU’s AI Act will come into force shortly following its recent approval … Summary of Legislative Process and Analyses of the AI Act: Legislative Process: The AI Act, approved by the Council of the EU on May 21, is the world’s first legislation of its kind. It uses a risk-based approach to impose stricter […]

During the closing ceremony of the 16th ACM WebSci conference we learned where/when the 17th conference will be held next year. One of our newer WSTNet Labs, Rutgers University, will be our hosts next year in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the USA. The conference will be run May 20-23 2025 and our host will […]

The annual Web Science Trust (WST) Test of Time Award has been presented to Albert Solé Ribalta (UOC), Manlio De Domenico (UniPD), Sergio Gomez (URV), and Alex Arenas (URV), for their work titled “Centrality rankings in multiplex networks”. The authors are the third group of researchers to receive the WST Test of Time Award which was […]

Here, Kieron O’Hara details a framework of seven levels to help separate the effects and affects of privacy from the facts. In looking at when a privacy boundary is crossed or not, this framework helps citizens think about when that’s problematic, and why this differs not only across cultures, but also across generations and even […]

Researchers at ETH Zurich have discovered that watermarks used to identify AI-generated text can be easily removed and copied, making them ineffective. These attacks undermine the credibility of watermarks and could therefore deceive people into trusting misleading text. Watermarking involves hiding patterns in AI-generated text to indicate its origin, but this recent research suggests there […]

After a secretive project hatched by Elon Musk to ensure the future funding of the World Wide Web and “to protect it from the influence of big corporates” it was announced that a group of big corporates known as “The April Consortium” including Tesla, IBM, Google, Amazon and Apple had effectively purchased the Web and […]

Europe’s journey toward establishing regulation and asserting leadership in the realm of Generative AI took center stage at a recent event titled after the report: “Generative AI: Europe’s Quest for Regulation and Industry Leadership.” Hosted at EIT House in collaboration with AiNed on March 21, the event brought together experts, policymakers, and industry leaders to […]

WebSci’24 promises a rich exploration of web science through: Workshops Tutorials A Ph.D. symposium Five inspiring keynotes. In addition to keynotes by Eszter Hargittai, Jie Tang, Dirk Hovy, Hannes Werthner, and Jennifer Pan, we look forward to the panel discussion, including Steffen Staab, with the theme: “Reflecting on the Web, AI, and Society.” Don’t miss […]

In a recent ArXiv paper Beizhe Hu et al compare the performance of Large Language Models (LLM’s) with other more focussed approaches to detect fake news Summary Detecting fake news requires both a delicate sense of diverse clues and a profound understanding of the real-world background, which remains challenging for detectors based on small language […]

This feature allowed users to access websites that were down or had changed. Google’s decision to remove this feature is due to improvements in webpage reliability over time. Although cached links have been disappearing since December, users can still create their own cache links by modifying the URL or using Google Search. Previously, cached links […]

The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that they’ve used an enormous number of NYT articles (into the millions) without permission (citation or payment) to train their AI systems, which unfairly disadvantages the newspaper and infringes their rights. NYT claims this violates copyright law and is seeking billions of dollars in damages. […]

We are delighjted to annouce that the recently announced list of 68 2023 ACM fellows includes not one but three of our Web Science colleagues. In alphabetical order: Prof. Sir Tim Berners-Lee – co-founder, WST patron and former trustee on the Web Science Trust board Prof. Deborah McGuiness – Web Science Lab Director at RPI […]

To combat tax evasion and increase revenue, the UK’s HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has introduced new tax rules starting January 1, 2024, aimed at small sellers on platforms like Etsy, Depop, Airbnb, and Vinted. These rules require platforms to record and report sellers’ income directly to HMRC, following guidelines from the Organisation for Economic […]

OpenAI has stated that developing AI tools like ChatGPT would be “impossible” without access to copyrighted material.  Several AI firms are currently facing lawsuits, including one from The New York Times (NYT) accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of “unlawful use” of its content in creating AI products. OpenAI defended its practices, emphasizing the necessity of using […]

A team of computer researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has introduced an advanced method named Baldur to significantly reduce software bugs and improve code verification. Combining large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT with the Thor tool, Baldur achieved an unprecedented efficacy rate of nearly 66%. Traditional manual methods for code verification are error-prone […]

The Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton are pleased to share with you their latest Position Paper authored by Ben Hawes and Prof Dame Wendy Hall Abstract The UK’s international Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit has answered some questions and sparked new ones. This is a good moment to reflect on what it delivered, […]

IBM and Meta have launched the AI Alliance, a global community of technology developers, researchers, and adopters collaborating to advance open, safe, and responsible AI. The alliance includes over 50 founding members and collaborators, including: AMD, CERN, Cornell University, Dell Technologies, Hugging Face, Intel, NASA, Oracle, and many others. The goal is to foster open […]

ChatGPT is continuing to show the cracks in established documentation processes and “gate-keeping” systems… Historically the written word has been used as part of the application process to judge the quality of the applicant(ion) and to dissuade casual applicants by requiring a certain level of effort.  Along with the enormous problems around GenAI authored student […]

Campaigners are taking legal action to stop a data-sharing deal between the NHS and Palantir, a US tech company, due to worries about patient privacy. Palantir secured a £330 million contract to create a Federated Data Platform (FDP) for the NHS, aiming to improve information sharing and address a patient backlog. Concerns include granting such […]

In a mildly comedic response, a ransomware gang decided to file an official SEC complaint when a victim ignored their ransom demand. The AlphV/BlackCat ransomware group has filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against MeridianLink, a software company, for not disclosing a cyberattack within a supposed four-day deadline. The ransomware […]

Before OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was ousted, researchers at OpenAI reportedly sent a letter to the board warning of a significant AI breakthrough with “potential risks to humanity”. The letter and a new AI algorithm, referred to as Q* (Q-star), it has been claimed, may have been key factors in Altman’s removal. Some at OpenAI […]

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies from 18 countries, including the EU, the US, and others, have signed an international agreement on AI safety to ensure new AI technologies are “secure by design.” This follows the EU’s AI Act, which bans certain AI technologies (such as predictive policing and biometric surveillance) and classifies high-risk AI systems. […]

ACM WebSci’24: Call for Submissions Conference Dates: May 21-24, 2024 websci24.org/ Hosted by the Interchange Forum for Reflecting on Intelligent Systems (IRIS) | Organized by the University of Stuttgart | Partners ACM • Cyber Valley • Web Science Trust • SigWeb Papers [LINK] Submission Deadline: Nov. 30, 2023 Contact for questions: acmwebsci24@easychair.org Workshops/Tutorials [LINK] Submission […]

Apollo research recently presented some disturbing findings at the UK AI safety summit. Their goal had been to co-erce (rather than instruct) an AI (in this case ChatGPT) to engage in some deceitful / illegal activity on the premise of this being helpful to humans (a “greater good” challenge). In the experiment the AI was […]

European lawmakers have reached an agreement on measures to safeguard elections and prevent policy fragmentation within the EU. The rules aim to protect EU elections from foreign interference, banning political ads targeting specific ethnic and religious groups and blocking ads funded by foreign lobbyists leading up to elections. The regulations, part of the EU’s broader […]

ChatGPT developer Open AI have introduced a slew of new features to their platform including faster (and cheaper!) versions of ChatGPT and DALL-E as well as a platform for building DIY AI Assistants and DIY versions of LLM apps known as GPT’s. Open AI is clearly looking to the financial success of the Apple Appstore […]

The UK government is encouraging police to expand their use of retrospective facial recognition (RFR) software to identify offenders. The policing minister has recommended over 200,000 image searches against the Police National Database within six months. This push, along with the drive for more live facial recognition cameras, has sparked concerns about civil liberties and […]

Elon Musk’s xAI (nee Twitter) have just released a beta product named  Grok (named from Sci-Fi author Robert Heinlein’s cyber-slang) meaning “to understand” Grok is based on large language models (LLM’s) like ChatGPT and has been trained on millions of articles from the Web. Where it differs is in retrieving up-to-date facts directly in real […]

Source: The following is reproduced in full from the UK Gov Website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-2023-the-bletchley-declaration/the-bletchley-declaration-by-countries-attending-the-ai-safety-summit-1-2-november-2023 Nov 6th 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents enormous global opportunities: it has the potential to transform and enhance human wellbeing, peace and prosperity. To realise this, we affirm that, for the good of all, AI should be designed, developed, deployed, and used, […]

Call for Papers ACM WebSci’24 ● 16th ACM Web Science Conference May 21 – May 24, 2024 ● Stuttgart, Germany Reflecting on the Web, AI, and Society Home Important Dates Thu, November 30, 2023: Paper submission deadline Wed, January 31, 2024: Notification Thu, February 29, 2024: Camera-ready versions due Tue-Fri, May 21 – May 24, […]

WST CEO Prof. Dame Wendy Hall has been appointed to the United Nations high-level advisory body on artificial intelligence. She is a Regius Professor of Computer Science from the University of Southampton and also Director of its Web Science Institute and was selected from more than 1,800 nominees across 128 countries.  Having previously been named […]

Government officials, including Rishi Sunak’s advisers, are engaging in discussions with global leaders to formulate a formal statement addressing the risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) before the upcoming AI Safety Summit scheduled for November 1st and 2nd. They aim to emphasize the UK’s leadership in AI safety, with a proposed domestic AI taskforce taking […]

A UK tribunal has made a significant legal decision favoring Clearview AI, a controversial US facial recognition tech company, by overturning a £7.5 million fine imposed by the UK’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The fine was related to Clearview unlawfully storing facial images of UK citizens. The tribunal’s ruling was based on […]

We are pleased to announce a new WSTNet Lab as we welcome the University of Texas at Austin under the leadership of Dhiraj Murthy and his Computational Media Lab to the network. We will catch up with Dhiraj and his team over the coming months for an interview and we are delighted that the network […]

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has issued a warning about the potential risks of artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models. These AI systems, trained on massive, unlabeled data sets, underpin large language models and can be used for various tasks. The CMA has proposed principles to guide the development and use of foundation models, […]

Call for Papers Important Dates Thu, November 30, 2023: Paper submission deadline Wed, January 31, 2024: Notification Thu, February 29, 2024: Camera-ready versions due Tue-Fri, May 21 – May 24, 2024: Conference dates All dates are 23:59 Anywhere on Earth time Possible topics across methodological approaches and digital contexts include but are not limited to: […]

Ian: Matt, it feels strange to welcome you as a more recent Lab Director when I think I’ve known you as part of the Web Science community for at least 10 years Matt: Probably longer – I think my interest in Web Science and particularly Web data goes back to the very first Web Science […]

The next Brave Conversation will take place on Thursday 20th July at Newspeak House in London. Brave Conversations London 2023 This is our 22nd Brave Conversations event and our third in London. At our first in 2018 we had only just launched Brave Conversations and our work with the Web Science Trust was gaining momentum. […]

Dame Wendy Hall gives an interview on Sky News on the future of AI, the possibility of long-term dangers and how we can pragmatically engage with the risks of disinformation in the short term

Digital Modernity “Modernity” is a social, cultural, or historical descriptor for a certain type of society or set of social arrangements. It is a contentious and disputed term, often understood implicitly. It is a way of describing and classifying highly complex, dynamic, and emergent aggregate social phenomena, and so dramatically simplifies such contexts. However, the […]

Following the resignation of Geoffrey Hinton from Google and associated comments regarding his concerns around the direction of AI research WST CEO Dame Wendy Hall spoke to the BBC. BBC_World_News-2023-05-02_15-02-39.mp4 Interview footage provided courtesy of BBC News. Prof. Dame Wendy Hall of the University of Southampton and CEO of the Web Science Trust (WST)

WebSci’23 is now over and we thank everyone who made it such as success. We’ll keep you posted on the proceedings and any follow-up news whilst keeping you up-to-date on preprations for the next event in Stuttgart, Germany May 21 – 24, 2024.

@ststaab and his team of local organizers invites the Web Science Community to Stuttgart, Germany for #WebSci24, taking place May 21 – 24, 2024.

The annual Web Science Trust (WST) Test of Time Award has been awarded to Nam P. Nguyen (Towson University), Guanhua Yan (Binghamton University), My T. Thai (University of Florida) and Stephan Eidenbenz (Los Alamos National Laboratory) for their work titled “Containment of Misinformation Spread in Online Social Networks”. The authors are the second group of […]

Warmest congratulation to Best Paper Winners Satrio Yudhoatmojo, Emiliano De Cristofaro andJeremy Blackburn for their paper titled “Understanding the Use of e-Prints on Redditand 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Board”. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” type=”1_3″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″] Congratulations also to Xinyu Wang, Maggie Wu and @rajtmajer_sarah who receive the Best Paper Award (Runner Up) […]

15th ACM Web Science Conference: Inequalities in the Face of Concurrent Crises 30 April – 1 May 2023 Austin, Texas, USA (and online) https://websci23.webscience.org/ With less than two weeks to go until the start of this year’s Web Science Conference, here comes our third news bulletin, introducing the paper sessions and their contents happening throughout […]

Web3 describes a group of technologies for managing collective interactions on the internet while avoiding centralised control, granting users agency over access to their data, and managing distribution of value as digital assets. The technologies are distributed ledgers including blockchain, cryptocurrencies, distributed autonomous organisations, decentralised finance, and non-fungible tokens. Web3 technologies offer technical solutions to […]

CONNECTIVITY The most important new fact about the human condition is that we are now suddenly connected. When I say “suddenly” I refer to the Internet’s birthday, October 29, 1969 and how two thirds of the human race, five billion people, are already on the Internet, in only 50 years. Suddenly. The Arpanet started the […]

15th ACM Web Science Conference: Inequalities in the Face of Concurrent Crises 30 April – 1 May 2023 Austin, Texas, USA (and online) With the full conference program now being available on our website (https://websci23.webscience.org/program/), this second bulletin gives you an overview of the different events taking place throughout our two conference days. Day 1 […]