Brave Conversations London ’23

Registration

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.

Since that time we have been to many different places and spaces but the conversations remain the same – how can we help Humans become Smarter in a world stuffed full of smart technologies?

Brave Conversations London 2023 takes place within the maelstrom of the emergence of G-LLAMs – Gigantic Large Language Models (Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, the AI Dilemma )

“The biggest threat facing humanity today is humanity in the age of the machines.” (Mo Gawdat)

So what are G-LLAMs and what should we be thinking about as they increasingly pervade our lives – underpinning everything from our waking moments to our sleep.

We will be exploring

  • What is the definition of a human in the Age of the Smart Machine?
  • What is the role of a human in this Age of the Smart Machine?
  • How do we retain our humanity whilst harnessing the power of Smart Machines to improve life for all on Planet Earth?

We will be guided in our conversations by the use of Mark Moore’s Strategic Triangle asking:

  • What Can We Do?
  • What Should We Do?
  • What May We Do?

“We assumed people were going to do good things with it. We really didn’t have any idea of what bad things people would do with it.
Everything that is bad within society is writ large within the Internet. They lose their moral compass in a way.”

Professor Dame Wendy Hall in Interview with Beth Ridley

 

Objectives

 

The goal of Brave Conversations is to challenge everyone who participates – regardless of what background they come from, or what their skillset and expertise are – to more fully explore and understand the interplay between humans, the societies we live in, and the technologies we have created.

We want to empower people to proactively make decisions about how we live our everyday lives, how we participate as commercial actors within the economy, and how we operate as digital citizens and exercise our political rights. That empowerment comes from demystifying data and information and understanding how it informs the everyday decisions which gradually create the future.

Each of those decisions begin on an individual human level – our bodies and our minds – and then emanates out to our families, communities, societies and from there to nation states. We are all responsible for the world we are creating and never has there been a time when we have more potential to influence the changes around us. But we need to be given the space for robust debate and respectful curiosity, learning from each other, playing with ideas, and asking the questions that are both confronting and potentially will take us to uncomfortable places.

Brave Conversations @ WebSci’22

Our next Brave Conversations event is coming up in a month’s time as a part of the 2022 Web Science Conference in Barcelona.

The event will be held both in Barcelona (if you are keen to come along or live in Barcelona) or online via Zoom starting at 3 pm Central European Time.

See:

https://braveconversations.org/barcelona-2022/

Web Science 2022:  https://websci22.webscience.org/

As always we will be exploring some of the most challenging and confronting issues issues which now face the ‘post-Covid’ world and which will include:

Identity and the Connected Self
The future of work, play and education
Synthetic biology and what next for Humanity?

It will interactive and emergent and we promise you will definitely learn new things!

Please do come and join us

Registrations at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/brave-conversations-barcelona-tickets-310550674427

We look forward to seeing you!

Anni and the Brave Conversations team

WebSci’22 Registration is open

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14th ACM Web Science Conference 2022 (WebSci’22)
26-29 June, 2022
Hybrid conference: Barcelona, Spain, and online (co-located with Hypertext 2022 and UMAP 2022 )
https://websci22.webscience.org/

This year, the ACM Web Science Conference will run in hybrid mode. Both online and in-person presentations will be streamed, and most of the activities will be set up to increase the experience for in-person interaction.

The WebSci’22 conference organizers seek to foster an accessible and inclusive conference. They recognize that ACM WebSci’22 attendees have differing abilities to pay, and have instituted a tiered pricing program to accommodate different financial needs.

For more information and to register go to

https://websci22.webscience.org/registration/

WebSci’22 Deadline Extended

We thank everyone who submitted their papers to this year’s ACM Web Science Conference. While the paper submission deadline has passed, it is still time to submit proposals for workshops or tutorials, to be held on site in Barcelona or online. The deadline for workshop and tutorial proposals has been extended to February 28 (23:59 anywhere on earth).

CALL FOR WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS
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The 14th ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci’22) is soliciting proposals for workshops and tutorials that address the way Web Science research can illuminate key contemporary issues and global challenges. Workshops should reflect the inter- and multidisciplinary nature of Web Science. Tutorials could cover a wide variety of Web Science approaches and methods, including but not limited to techniques for data collection, processing, analysis, as well as substantive interpretation, best practices, and ethics. Examples of potential WebSci workshop areas include but are not limited to:
* Misinformation and propaganda on the Web
* Online health and wellness (especially concerning the COVID-19 pandemic)
* Online mental health
* The interplay between AI and the Web
* Using Web Science for social good
* Collective intelligence, crowdsourcing
* Bias on the Web
* Data ethics and algorithmic accountability
* Digital inequalities: access, quality, and participation
* Information privacy and cybersecurity
* Learning and education on the Web
* Social connections and social influence on the Web
* Social inclusion and exclusion on the Web
* Internet politics and political participation
* Internet, Globalization and Cultural Identities
* The evolution of social media services
* The future of the Web
* Cybercrime and safety
* Digital Humanitarianism
* ICT for development
* Climate Change and digital carbon footprints
* Paid and unpaid work, the gig economy
* Aging and generations (different practices and attitudes towards the Web)
* Global south and globalization
* Gender and sexualities (the Web as safe/unsafe space, space for mobilization)
Workshops and tutorials can be either on-site or fully online. A “call for papers/contributions” is optional. Workshops/tutorials with alternative interactive modes such as e.g. round table discussions or design/co-creation sessions can also be proposed. You can propose a program committee (PC) with content experts for your event.
When accepted, make sure your event is held in a timezone amenable to the participants. Each workshop or tutorial should have a web address containing all information about the venue, call for contributions, deadlines, modality, language etc. Workshops and tutorials can be held in any language.

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PROPOSAL FORMAT
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* Proposals can be up to 3 pages long and should include the following information (please submit your proposal in English):
* Workshop/tutorial title.
* Workshop/tutorial summary (1-2 paragraphs).
* Workshop/tutorial description, including the motivation and goals of the proposal and its relevance to the field of Web Science.
* Workshop/tutorial schedule and activities, including the format, proposed activities (panels, sessions, interactive exercises, etc.), the invited speakers or panelists, the modality (on-site or online).
* Workshop/tutorial organizer information, including names, affiliations, emails, and personal websites. Please indicate who would be the primary contact person for the submission.
* Please indicate if the workshop has been run in the past.
* Target audience and audience size: the expected number and type of attendees and any information about the required skills or tools with which participants need to be familiar.
* The primary language(s) of the workshop/tutorial (i.e., English, Chinese).
* The desired time zone for the workshop/tutorial.
* The workshop/tutorial will be: (i) onsite in Barcelona or (ii) fully online?
* Special requirements or equipment, if any.

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PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS
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Proposals must be submitted to EasyChair by February 21, 2022, via: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=websci22

Workshop and tutorial proposals will be evaluated based on their relevance, timeliness, originality and the potential to address important questions and attract audiences from different disciplines. Relevance to the interdisciplinary field of Web Science is a prerequisite for all submissions. Workshop and tutorial notifications will be sent by March 7, 2022. If inviting peer-reviewed workshop papers, workshop organizers are requested to have the paper submission deadline in their workshops to be no later than April 9, 2022.

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PROCEEDINGS
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Workshop organizers are free to publish workshop proceedings. WebSci22 offers the possibility to include workshop papers as a companion collection of the ACM WebSci22 proceedings. In this case, workshop schedules must be aligned with the schedule for the publication of the overall proceedings, i.e. camera-ready papers need to be submitted to us by 12 May 2022. This is a strict deadline, and we will not be able to include any papers not received by this date.

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IMPORTANT DATES (Workshops & Tutorials)
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Feb 28, 2022: Workshop and Tutorial Proposal Submission Deadline (extended deadline, 23:59 anywhere on earth)
Mar 07, 2022: Notifications
Apr 09, 2022: Workshop Paper Submission Deadline
May 12, 2022: Camera-ready Deadline for the Companion Proceedings
Jun 26, 2022: workshop and tutorial day at WebSci’22 (Barcelona and online)

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ORGANISERS
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Workshop & Tutorial Track Chairs:
Anna Bon, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Srinath Srinivasa, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, India
CONTACT
websci22-workshops-tutorials@easychair.org

———————————————–
14th ACM Web Science Conference 2022 (WebSci’22)
26-29 June, 2022
26 June: Workshop and Tutorial day
Hybrid conference: Barcelona, Spain, and online (co-located with Hypertext 2022)
Deadline for proposing workshops + tutorials (extended): Feb 28, 2022 – 23:59 anywhere on earth
https://websci22.webscience.org/
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Deadline Extension WebSci’22

 

Dear colleagues,

to better align with the deadlines of our co-located conferences, we are extending the deadline for paper submissions for #WebSci22 to Feb 17 (23:59 anywhere on earth).
Workshops and tutorials can also still be proposed until Feb 21.

The 14th ACM Web Science Conference (#WebSci22) will take place on 26 – 29 June 2022 as a Hybrid Conference in Barcelona, Spain, and online.
ACM’s Conferences #HT2022 and #UMAP2022 will also be hosted in Barcelona a few days after #WebSci22.

WebSci’22 is an interdisciplinary conference where a multitude of research disciplines converge with the purpose of creating greater insight into a complex global Web than the sum of their individual parts. We invite participation from diverse fields including computer and information sciences, communication, economics, informatics, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.

Please carefully check the conference Website for information on formatting and templates. Review is double-blind. Proceedings will be published open access through ACM’s OpenTOC system. For authors who wish to opt out of publication proceedings, this option will be made available upon acceptance.
For full details about submission formats and topical scope, please see the call for papers at: https://websci22.webscience.org/calls-guidelines/call-for-papers/

IMPORTANT DATES: Paper Submissions
—————–
Feb 17, 2022: Paper submission deadline (extended)
Mar 31, 2022: Notification
May 12, 2022: Camera-ready versions due
Jun 26-29 22: Conference dates (Barcelona and online)

IMPORTANT DATES: Workshops & Tutorials
——————-
Feb 21, 2022: Workshop and Tutorial Proposal Submission Deadline
Mar 07, 2022: Notifications
Apr 09, 2022: Workshop Paper Submission Deadline
May 12, 2022: Camera-ready Deadline for the Companion Proceedings
Jun 26, 2022: workshop and tutorial day at WebSci’22 (Barcelona and online)

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ORGANISERS
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PROGRAMME COMMITTEE CHAIRS
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Oshani Seneviratne (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Ingmar Weber (Qatar Computing Research Institute)
Taha Yasseri (University College Dublin)

For any questions and queries regarding the paper submission, please contact the pc chairs at websci22@easychair.org

WORKSHOP & TUTORIAL TRACK CHAIRS
—————————-
Anna Bon, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Srinath Srinivasa, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, India
CONTACT: websci22-workshops-tutorials@easychair.org

 

———————————————–
14th ACM Web Science Conference 2022 (WebSci’22)
26-29 June, 2022
Hybrid conference: Barcelona, Spain, and online
co-located with ACM Hypertext and ACM UMAP
Deadline for paper submissions (extended): Feb 17, 2022 (23:59 anywhere on earth)
Deadline for workshop/tutorial proposals: Feb 21, 2022
https://websci22.webscience.org/
———————————————–

Deadline Approaching WebSci’22

 

Dear colleagues

 

We invite you to submit your contributions to our articles for the 14th ACM Web Science Conference on 26 – 29 June 2022 (WebSci’22, Hybrid Conference: in Barcelona, Spain, and online).

 

The 14th International ACM Web Science Conference in 2022 (WebSci’22) is an interdisciplinary conference where a multitude of research disciplines converge with the purpose of creating greater insight into a complex global Web than the sum of their individual parts. We invite participation from diverse fields including computer and information sciences, communication, economics, informatics, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.

 

Contributions may be analytical, conceptual, creative, critical, predictive, theoretical (or all of the above) and should aim, wherever possible, to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. The conference provides a platform to a range of practitioners from Ph.D. students to experienced researchers and ideas ranging from early work through projects as well as final analysis and completed publishable work. We look to evaluate and value the impact of the Web Science approach, its current theoretical, methodological, and epistemological challenges as well as Web practices of individuals, collectives, institutions, and platforms.

 

The ACM Web Science Conference 2022 will run as a hybrid conference, where authors will present their work either in-person or remotely to participants gathering at the conference venue in Barcelona, or online. The conference will be co-located with ACM HyperText, which is scheduled for June 28th to July 1st, 2022 –https://ht.acm.org/ht2022/.

 

THE OLD VS. THE NEW NORMAL

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Web-based technologies have proven to be playing a vital role in enabling us to cope with the global pandemic. Having experienced two years of “crisis,” many new norms have been forming, both socially and technologically. While some people long to return to how things were before the pandemic, others are questioning whether that is a state worth returning to. The main theme of this year’s conference, therefore, is the old vs. the new normal. Even though the conference accepts a wide range of topics (see below), papers discussing this overall issue would be particularly welcomed.

 

Web Science is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding the complex and multiple impacts of the Web on society, and vice versa. As such, the field of Web Science is particularly well situated to address pressing issues of our time.

 

Methodologically, Web Science is a discipline that is agnostic to specific methods. We welcome quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research, including methods from the social sciences and computer science. In addition, we welcome work that explores the ethics of Web-based data collection and research and those which have a broader perspective on the Web and that combine analyses of Web data and other types of data (e.g., from surveys or interviews) to better understand user behaviour (i.e., online and offline).

 

Building on our theme for 2022, we especially welcome contributions on:

 

* Successful cases of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary Web research

* Trends in globalisation, fragmentation, rejoining, and Balkanisation of the Web

* Automation and AI in all its manifestations relevant to the Web

* Interrogate questions of discrimination, representation and fairness

* Bring lenses such as intersectionality or design justice to questions of marginalisation and inequality

* Ethical challenges of technologies, data, algorithms, platforms, and people in the Web

* Modeling Web-related structures, data, users and behaviours

* Impact of AI and machine learning on the development of Web Science

* Detecting, preventing and predicting anomalies in Web data (e.g., fake content, spam, algorithmic and data biases)

* Data curation, Web archives and stewardship in Web Science

* Safeguarding and governance of the Web, including anonymity, security and trust

* Temporal and spatial dimensions of the Web as a repository of information

* The architecture and philosophy of the Web

* Social machines, crowd computing and collective intelligence

* Analysis and modeling of human vs. automatic behaviour (e.g., bots) and their influence on the structure of the Web and responding behaviour

* Critical analyses of the Web and Web technologies

* Web economics, social entrepreneurship, and innovation

* Analysis of online social and information networks

* Legal issues including rights and accountability for AI actors

* Humanities, arts, and culture on the Web

* Inclusion, literacy and the digital divide

* Politics and social activism on the Web

* Online education and remote learning

* Health and well-being online

 

 

IMPORTANT DATES

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Thu, February 10, 2022 Paper submission deadline

Thu, March 31, 2022 Notification

Thu, May 12, 2022 Camera-ready versions due

Sun-Wed, June 26-29 Conference dates

 

 

 

FORMAT OF SUBMISSIONS

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Please upload your submissions via EasyChair:https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=websci22

 

There are two submission formats:

* Full papers should be between 6 and 10 pages (inclusive of references, appendices, etc.). Full papers typically report on mature and completed projects.

* Short papers should be up to 5 pages (inclusive of references, appendices, etc.). Short papers will be primarily reporting on high-quality ongoing work not mature enough for a full-length publication.

 

All accepted submissions will be assigned an oral presentation (of two different lengths). The option of additional poster presentations and other details will be decided in due time depending on the technical setup and other factors.

All authors of accepted papers (including those who opt out of proceedings) are expected to present their work (in-person or virtually) at the conference.

 

Please carefully check the conference Website for information on formatting and templates.

Review is double-blind. Please anonymize your submission. All contributions will be judged by the Program Committee upon rigorous peer review standards for quality and fit the conference, by at least three referees. Additionally, each paper will be assigned to a Senior Program Committee member to ensure review quality.

 

Proceedings will be published open access through ACM’s OpenTOC system. For authors who wish to opt out of publication proceedings, this option will be made available upon acceptance.

 

 

 

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE CHAIRS

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Oshani Seneviratne (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Ingmar Weber (Qatar Computing Research Institute)

Taha Yasseri (University College Dublin)

 

For any questions and queries regarding the paper submission, please contact the pc chairs at websci22@easychair.org

———————————————–

14th ACM Web Science Conference 2022 (WebSci’22)

26-29 June, 2022

Hybrid conference: Barcelona, Spain, and online (co-located with Hypertext 2022)

Deadline for paper submissions: Feb 10, 2022

https://websci22.webscience.org/

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