We are excited to share that D-Lab's Executive Director, Claudia von Vacano, will be featured on the upcoming panel "Hate Speech: Current Debates and Alternative Approaches," alongside leading scholars in the field, including Susan Benesch of the Dangerous Speech Project and the Berkman Klein Center (Harvard University).
This two-day event will take place March 14-15, 2025, and will delve into key issues such as defining and identifying hate speech, examining monitoring practices, and exploring ongoing conceptual debates. In addition, the program will spotlight alternative strategies to countering hate speech, fostering dialogue around innovative, research-informed solutions.
The event will also feature the introduction of the AI tool pari, developed through a collaboration between the Hrant Dink Foundation, Boğaziçi University, and Sabancı University, as well as the release of new reports from the project "Utilizing Digital Technology for Social Cohesion, Positive Messaging and Peace by Boosting Collaboration, Exchange and Solidarity." These include:
Hate Speech: Contemporary Issues and Debates
Utilizing AI against Hate Speech: A Guide to Annotation, Classification, and Detection
Dates: March 14-15, 2025 Location: Register for Zoom link or Live on YouTube
Antipodal Experiments: Digital Humanities & Social Science (D-HASS) in Australasia D-Lab
In 2002, Australian sociologist Peter Beilharz suggested that the Antipodes is "a new civilization between Manhattan and the Rhine," highlighting a dynamic region where cultural ideas and modernity are tested in innovative ways. In this workshop, Professor James Smithies will discuss the state of Digital Humanities and Social Science (D-HASS) in Australasia, with insights from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Professor Smithies will highlight recent initiatives, such as major national hubs like the HASS Digital Research Hub at ANU, and explore themes of collective well-being, pluralism, environmental sustainability, Indigenous data sovereignty, and human-centered design. This talk will challenge narratives of decline by presenting innovative, community-focused digital research strategies and the potential for renewal through antipodal, pluralistic, and inclusive thinking.
Instructor:James Smithies, Professor of Digital Humanities & Director of the HASS Digital Research Hub (HDRH), Australian National University (ANU)
Date: Wednesday, March 19 @ 4pm-5:30pm Location: D-Lab Collaboratory (356 Social Sciences Building, 3rd floor)
The UC Berkeley Digital Humanities Working Group is a research community founded to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations in the digital humanities and cultural analytics. Our gatherings are participant driven and provide a place for sharing research ideas (including brainstorming new ideas and receiving feedback from others), learning about the intersection of computational methods and humanistic inquiry, and connecting with others working in this space at Berkeley. We encourage everyone to participate, regardless of your experience level. The DH Working Group is a welcoming and supportive community for all things digital humanities.
The Evolving Landscape of Web Scraping on Social Media Platforms
by Nanqin Ying
As social media platforms enforce stricter policies against unauthorized data collection, businesses and researchers must adapt to new API-based access models. This shift limits large-scale web scraping, impacting industries reliant on social media insights. The transition to paid API access and stringent compliance measures raises concerns about accessibility, cost, and ethical data collection. This article explores the evolving regulatory landscape, the enforcement of API restrictions, and how organizations can legally and ethically navigate data access in a world where scraping is becoming increasingly difficult. Understanding these changes is crucial for staying compliant while maintaining valuable insights from social media data.
D-Lab is now publishing on Medium! Follow us to stay up to date on all D-Lab related written content, including our blog posts, thought pieces, and staff updates. We’ll also recommend interesting articles we find on Medium and beyond!
We are looking for an undergraduate student who can commit on average eight (8) hours per week next academic year with a pay rate of $19 per hour. Start date is expected in late summer, before the start of the semester. This position is mostly remote with a few expected in-person engagements. Work hours are flexible from week-to-week.
To apply, send a brief statement describing your interest and qualifications for this position along with your resume or curriculum vitae (CV) to teaching@berkeley.edu by March 31st.
For the Inaugural Sunrise Lecture on Media and Technology, hosted by the Department of German, we welcome Dr. Fabian Offert, Assistant Professor of the History and Theory of Digital Humanities at UC Santa Barbara.
Following a trail of newly uncovered ideas about neural representation in the technical literature, from early attempts to model the human visual cortex to contemporary multimodal foundation models, Vector Media reconstructs how the subcutaneous ideology of the vector space came to dominate artificial intelligence research, how it informs the expansion of artificial intelligence into all areas of everyday life (as well as the natural sciences), and how it ultimately must be understood as a tool for the creation of neural exchange value: value that specific cultural objects obtain once they become part of a vector space, and that exists exclusively as a function of their neural commensurability.
Date: Thursday, March 13 @ 5pm-7pm Location: Dwinelle Hall 188
Clancy Wilmott will be giving a 25-minute presentation on Data Practice as Theoretical Inquiry: Machine Learning, Polygons and other notebook adventures in Cartography and GIS, and leading a 25-minute Q&A. Join us for lunch in person or join us on Zoom!
This talk discusses how the practice of data analysis, computation and wrangling can serve as a mode of critical theoretical inquiry into the operation of systems of power based on abstraction, classification and calculation. Specifically, Wilmott discusses two ongoing projects - her next book, Cartotopia, which uses generative adversarial networks to investigate the long history of cartographic homogenization of space and place, and its translation into computational logics; and a Sea of Islands, an ongoing collaboration with the Critical Pacific Islands Studies Collective, which is rebuilding pacific island datasets fractured by legacies of colonialism, extraction and militarisation.
Date/Time: Monday, March 17 @ 12pm Location: Sutardja Dai Hall, Suite 621
Learn the basics of how to use ArcGIS Storymaps to create online exhibits! Great for exhibits (shocker, given the title), online storytelling, showing off personal research, developing class projects, and more. For amusing examples see The Dance of Death or The Journey of Ham Mukasa from Uganda to England in 1902.
Session will be broken into a tech demo using ArcGIS Online (AGOL) and then a 20 minute workshop to play with the technology.
Date/Time: Tuesday, March 18 @ 3pm Location: Remote via Zoom
COSSA’s Social Science Advocacy Day is back! Advocacy Day brings together social and behavioral scientists and science advocates from across the country to engage with policymakers. The stakes for research funding have never been higher as we enter a particularly challenging political and budgetary environment. Social Science Advocacy Day is a must for all stakeholders who care about the fate of federal funding for social and behavioral science research and who believe this research should be used to inform sound public policy.
This opportunity is available to individuals affiliated with a COSSA member organization. You can check your organization/institution's membership status here. Participants are responsible for making their own travel arrangements and accommodations.
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