Senior Research Associate Dr Jeffrey Howard and Doctoral Candidate Kyle Van Oosterum are co-hosting a two-day round table workshop in collaboration with the UCL Digital Speech Lab. The workshop, which will be held at Magdalen College, Oxford, will discuss a range of philosophical and legal questions about the regulation of social media corporations.
Spaces at this roundtable workshop are limited, so if you would like to attend this event in-person, please contact Kyle Van Oosterum.
Please see below for speaker details and schedule for this workshop (please note: this schedule is subject to change).
Monday, 13th May – Oscar Wilde Room, Magdalen College, Oxford
9:45am-10:15am - Welcome and registration
10:15am – 11:25am
“Proportionality and Content Moderation: The Case of Algorithmic Demotion” Jeffrey Howard (UCL) & Beatriz Kira (Sussex)
11:30am – 12:40pm
“Something AI Should Tell You: Why Platforms Must Label Synthetic Content” (Sarah Fisher, Cardiff/UCL)
12:40pm – 13:30pm - Break for lunch
13:30pm – 14:40pm
“Bridging Over Troubled Waters: The ethics of bridging systems in divided societies,” Diana Acosta Navas (Loyola)
14:45pm – 15:55pm
"Online Public Shaming and the Case for Regulating Social Media Platforms", Paul Billingham (Oxford)
16:00pm Workshop concludes
18:00pm - Private drinks & dinner for speakers and invited guests
Tuesday, 14th May – Sophia Sheppard Room, Magdalen College, Oxford
9:00am-9:30am - Arrivals
9:30am - 10:40am
“Property Rights, Social Media and Freedom of Association,” Kyle Van Oosterum (Oxford)
10:50am – 12:00pm
“The Ruggie Principles on Business and Human Rights: Strengths and Limitations,” Caroline Green (Oxford)
12:00pm - Break for lunch
12:30pm – 13:40pm
"The Meta Oversight Board, the Self-Regulation of Social Media Companies, and the Challenges of Systemic Risks” Paolo Carozza (Notre Dame)
13:40pm - Workshop concludes
Hosted by
Dr Jeffrey Howard is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Public Policy at UCL. He holds a DPhil from Oxford University and an AB from Harvard University. At UCL he holds appointments in the Department of Political Science, School of Public Policy, and (by affiliation) Department of Philosophy. Jeff is a UKRI Future Leader Fellow, British Academy Rising Star, and BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He was the recipient of the 2021 Berger Memorial Prize from the American Philosophical Association. Jeff's work on freedom of expression, social media, democracy, social contract theory, crime and punishment, and counter-extremism has appeared in many journals including Philosophy & Public Affairs, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Law and Philosophy, British Journal of Political Science, and the Annual Review of Political Science.
Kyle Van Oosterum is a doctoral candidate in philosophy and member of the Institute for Ethics in AI. Previously, he completed an MPhil in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and an MA in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews.
Kyle’s research focuses on theories within political philosophy and how they provide a framework for thinking about how to mitigate the problem of social media echo chambers which are mediated by opaque machine learning algorithms. In exploring how political philosophy applies to this contemporary problem, he hopes to reflect not only on the relevance these ideas have for a timely problem, but also on what this problem itself makes salient about our moral and political theorizing. His other interests include the philosophy of conspiracy theorizing, consent in biomedical research and abstract questions about practical reason.