Jeff Howard participates in the debate on the proposition, “This House Would End Private Ownership of Social Media Platforms”, arguing against the proposition.

More information at https://oxford-union.org/.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming how governments govern and how citizens engage with the state, with far-reaching consequences for democratic processes and institutions. From the growing use of AI in policymaking in the name of efficiency, to the impact of deepfakes on election campaigns, to the use of AI by private companies eager to harvest consumers’ personal data, these technologies have quickly become embedded in everyday life.

How is the expanding use of AI reshaping the relationship between citizens and the state?  Who should set the rules governing the development and deployment of AI, and how can democratic institutions effectively regulate tech giants? Our panel of experts will explore these critical questions. Speakers include Claudia Chwalisz (Founder and CEO of Democracy Next); Elizabeth Seger (Director of Digital Policy at Demos); and Melanie Smallman (Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies). Jeffrey Howard (UCL Digital Speech Lab) will chair.

The UCL Digital Speech Lab is pleased to co-organize this event with the UCL Policy & Practice Series.

Register here.

What is the appropriate treatment of hate speech in European human rights law? In this event, Dr Natalie Alkiviadou (Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University) will present her argument that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) should fundamentally rethink its approach to hate speech cases, in order to strengthen freedom of expression. After setting out her argument, Dr Alkiviadou will critical engage a panel of leading experts on free speech and human rights law: Dr Joan Barata (Católica Porto Law School/Queen Mary Univ. of London), Prof. Veronika Fikfak (UCL), Prof. Eric Heinze (Queen Mary Unive. of London), and Prof. Gavin Phillipson (Bristol). The session will be introduced by Prof. Jeffrey Howard (UCL) and chaired by Ricki-Lee Gerbandt (Cambridge/UCL).

More information here.

THE PROBLEM OF CUMULATIVELY HARMFUL SPEECH

The purpose of this roundtable is to discuss what social media platforms should do about cumulatively harmful speech, defined broadly as speech that becomes harmful when aggregated and algorithmically amplified. There is substantial disagreement on how to conceptualize this category, and how to determine empirically what speech belongs to it. There is also substantial disagreement on the appropriate remedies, such as demotion, and whether such remedies raise free speech concerns. This event will bring together a small number of social scientists, lawyers, philosophers, Oversight Board members and staff, and industry professionals, with expertise across a range of content areas.

Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt will speak on a panel alongside Jeff Modisett (Fulbright Fellow and Honorary Professor of Practice at UCL) and Judith van Erp (Professor of Regulatory Governance at the University of Utrecht) chaired by Colin Provost (UCL Department of Political Science).

In recent years, the detrimental health effects of social media have been undeniably exposed, particularly in the case of young people. Algorithms employed by social media platforms to keep people engaged with their devices raise questions of whether such algorithms foster addiction. Moreover, an abundance of evidence has demonstrated that the online consumption patterns can lead to suicidal thoughts and other mental health problems. 

Regulators around the world have taken a variety of approaches towards dealing with these problems. Legislation, lawsuits, and reputation-based “naming and shaming” tactics, have all been utilised to combat the public health effects of social media. In this event, we explore these different approaches and attempt to discern what impact they have had thus far, both separately and jointly, for the important question of how to regulate social media for public health.

Information on the event can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/events/2025/oct/regulating-social-media-and-future-public-health

Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt spoke at the symposium on the future of SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) at the London School of Economics & Political Science. Event details here: https://inforrm.org/2025/02/20/event-symposium-on-the-future-of-slapps-research/

Jeff Howard and Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt speak at a workshop on the Online Safety Act organized by the UCL Faculty of Laws. The programme is available here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2025/jun/online-safety-act-workshop?mc_cid=51976585b3&mc_eid=7ba725419a

Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt spoke on the panel “The populist playbook and attacks on press freedom” at the conference “Democracy, Law & Independent Journalism” hosted at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford. Event details here: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/content/event/conference-democracy-law-and-independent-journalism

Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt presented her research on the protection of journalistic content and the press in the UK Online Safety Act at the University of Sussex conference on the Future of the Online Safety Act.

Jeffrey Howard will serve on the Online Information Advisory Committee at Ofcom. Press release here: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/structure-and-leadership/ofcom-establishes-online-information-advisory-committee

Jeff Howard gave a draft paper, “Incitement to Self-Harm,” at the joint Political Theory Colloquium convened by the University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde.

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

Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt (UCL) and Jeffrey Howard (UCL) co-authored a submission to the Oversight Board in response to its call for public comments (“Content Targeting Human Rights Defender in Peru”)

We can find the Board’s call for comments here and our submission here.

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).

Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt (UCL), Jeffrey Howard (UCL), and Maxime Lepoutre (Reading) collaborated on a public comment to the Oversight Board on cases involving incitement, hate speech, and misinformation that may have contributed to the summer 2024 UK riots.

You can find the Oversight Board’s call for comments here and our submission here.

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.