Please join us for a symposium on Comment Section Research and Design.

This daylong event will bring together a carefully selected group of 40 academics and industry researchers for a program including talks on emerging research, breakout workshops, and ample opportunities for unstructured connecting.

Together, we’ll delve deeper into topics including fostering civic norms, bridging algorithms, and public deliberation in our digital public squares. We'll explore research on the use of prompts, coaches, nudges, tags, buttons, and AI mediators in comment sections.

We’ll end the day with participant lead workshops advancing future work in the field.

If you cannot make the in-person event, you can watch our live stream here. If you are watching the live stream, please do not RSVP for the event. RSVP is for in-person attendees only.

This event is co-organized by Plurality Institute, The Council for Tech and Social Cohesion, and the Prosocial Design Network, and will be hosted at the Internet Archive in San Francisco CA.

Agenda

9:00-9:45am—Breakfast
9:45-10:05am—Welcome + Intros
10:15-10:35am—Framing talks
10:35-11:35am—Speaker Session One*
11:35-11:50am—Bio break
11:50-12:50pm—Speaker Session Two*
12:50-1:50pm—Lunch
1:50-2:20pm—Discussion
2:30-3:30pm—Speaker Session Three*
3:30-4:00pm—Coffee Break
4:00-5:00pm—Workshopping
5:00-5:30pm—Closing Circle
5:30-7:00pm—Reception

*All speaker sessions include 3-5 speakers followed by a 15-minute facilitated Q/A.

Speaker Session One: Fostering Healthy Interactions
In this session, we look at past and ongoing research on how we can build environments and tools - using, for example, cues, nudges and AI assistants - to foster prosocial discourse.
Confirmed Speakers:
Talia Stroud, University of Texas at Austin
Glenn Ellingson, Integrity Institute
Matt Katsaros, The Justice Collaboratory
Gordon Strause, Nextdoor

Speaker Session Two: Fixing the Feed
The feed - the content that users are exposed to first or at all - can influence how we engage and what we think. This session looks at algorithmically informed ways to improve the feed in order to optimize for healthy engagement.
Confirmed Speakers:
Ravi Iyer, Psychology of Technology Institute, USC Neely Center
Leif Sigerson, Pinterest
Matt Motyl, USC Neely Center
Jay Baxter, Twitter

Speaker Session Three: Tools for Communities
There’s a move to center communities developing and selecting the design solutions that align with their goals and values. We'll hear from speakers who are working with community stewards and news organizations to glean what they’ve learned about stewards’ needs and tools to help them steer their communities towards healthy discourse.
Confirmed Speakers:
Angelica Quicksey, New_Public
Rob Ennals, New_Public
Emily Saltz, Jigsaw at Google
Shubham Altreja, University of Michigan

About Plurality Institute

Plurality Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to fostering human cooperation and progress. We serve as a hub for academics, industry researchers, practitioners, and leaders from both civil and governmental sectors, all of whom are pushing boundaries to reimagine collaborative frameworks.

Our mission is to support and nurture the emerging field of plurality. We facilitate this through hosting both in-person and online events, supporting partner initiatives, sharing pivotal news and research updates, and offering a centralized job and opportunity portal to enhance ecosystem accessibility.

More at Plurality.Institute

About The Council on Technology and Social Cohesion

The Council on Tech and Social Cohesion is catalyzing the field of technology for social cohesion. A ‘catalyzed’ field will be one in which tech for social cohesion products, programs, and policies are desirable, affordable, and actionable.

More at techandsocialcohesion.org

About the Prosocial Design Network

The Prosocial Design Network curates and researches evidence-based design solutions to bring out the best in human nature online.

More at www.prosocialdesign.org

Symposium on Comment Section Research & Design