What can be done about hate speech and fake news?
The 2023 Latsis Symposium will take place at ETH Zurich from 6 to 8 September. This year’s theme is how to counter online phenomena such as hate speech and fake news and how public discourse can be strengthened.
Social media and online comment forums have become an important component of how we communicate with each other and share information. They enable us to engage in discourse with people throughout the world on an extremely wide range of topics at any time. In itself this is a good thing that could enrich our democracy, as the most diverse viewpoints, opinions and information can be brought together online.
However, reality often tells a different story: posts in online forums are quite often destructive, fake news spreads virally and hate speech is not uncommon.
Jointly strengthening public discourse
It is precisely this problem and possible solutions that this year’s Latsis Symposium will be addressing. Entitled “Tackling online hate speech and strengthening public discourse”, the event will bring together players from civil society, representatives of online news platforms and scientists for three days. Its goal will be to find new ways together of countering harmful online language and strengthening public discourse in the age of social media.
It will start off with a Hackathon on Wednesday 6 September at which students will develop an algorithm for recognising online hate speech.
Programme and registration
The Latsis Symposium addresses topics that are the subject of research at ETH Zurich and of interest to the public at large.
The programme for this year’s symposium is available online: latsis2023.ethz.ch/program
Persons interested in attending can register for individual days, for all three days or just for the Hackathon. external page Please register here.
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