This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners in computer and social sciences from both academia and industry to exchange ideas on understanding the multi-faceted social, psychological, cultural, emotional, communicative, and linguistic aspects of harmful content while leading the discussion on building novel computational methods to reliably detect, derive meaning, interpret, understand and counter them.

We welcome papers for consideration, employing quantitative and/or qualitative, analytical, theoretical approaches examining a diverse range of issues related to online harmful communications. Papers on resources/data and tools will also be welcome either for demos or for short/regular talks. The authors of the best paper will be invited for the Special Issue on Cyber-Social Health: Promoting Good and Countering Harm on Social Media.

Topics for research and discussions include (but not limited to):
Online extremism
Harassment and cyberbullying
Hate speech
Gender-based violence,
Human trafficking,
Illicit drug trafficking,
Mental health implications of social media,
Ethical considerations on privacy-preserving social media analytics,
Emotional and psychological support,
Trust relationship and community dynamics,
Relationship of the social web and mainstream news media,
Cultural implications of social web usage,
Influencer identification and community detection for movements
Misinformation and disinformation (e.g., epidemics of fake news, images and videos, during a disaster, health issues and elections).


For any questions, please contact kursuncu@mailbox.sc.edu.

Co-organizers:
Ugur Kursuncu, AI Institute, University of South Carolina, SC, USA.
Yelena Mejova, ISI Foundation, Turin, Italy.
Jeremy Blackburn, State University of New York at Binghamton, NY, USA
Amit Sheth, AI Institute, University of South Carolina, SC, USA.