Reimagining Online Discourse

Workshop Program

Keynotes, panel discussions, mini-workshops, and networking breaks brought together diverse stakeholders from academia, civil society, industry, and government. Together, we explored the latest research on harmful online content and brainstormed actionable strategies to address these pressing challenges.

We focused on two central questions:

1. What do we know about the challenges of hate speech and mis- and disinformation online, and how can we best approach them?
2. What do we know about effective solutions, strategies, and tools to combat these issues?

Some key takeaways of the two-day workshop:

Consistency Matters: Clear and consistent definitions of harmful content, like hate speech, are essential for guiding action. However, finding the best approach to achieve this remains an open challenge.
Focused Interventions: It’s important to differentiate between “harmful but lawful” content and “illegal” content to enable targeted and effective interventions.
Effective Countermeasures: Counterspeech and content moderation are powerful tools but must be implemented thoughtfully. It’s crucial to base intervention strategies on solid evidence to ensure they lead to meaningful impact.
Access to Data: Limited access to platform data remains a barrier, hindering our ability to comprehensively study harmful content, such as misinformation, and its real-world effects.
Technological Trade-offs: While algorithmic changes and other tech-driven solutions can help reduce misinformation, they often come with trade-offs, like reduced access to political news or decreased diversity in discourse.
Adapting Moderation: Looking forward, we need to consider moderation tools that can keep pace with the growing volume and speed of online content production.

The workshop was co-organized in collaboration with the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for New Media (BLM), the Bavarian State Ministry of Justice (StMJ), the Institute for Strategic Dialogue Germany (ISD), das NETTZ, the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), and the Content Moderation Lab at the TUM Think Tank.