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The rapid growth of the digital platform economy is transforming labor markets, offering new employment opportunities with promises of flexibility and accessibility. However, these benefits often come at the expense of increased economic…
We propose a research initiative to explore and evaluate end-user technology, infrastructure, business imperatives, and regulatory policy to support the privacy, dignity, and market power of individual persons in the context of the emerging…
Decentralisation is one of the promises introduced by blockchain technologies: fair and secure interaction amongst peers with no dominant positions, single points of failure or censorship. Decentralisation, however, appears difficult to be…
Social platforms connect billions of people, yet their engagement-first algorithms often work on users rather than with them, amplifying stress, misinformation, and a loss of control. We propose Human-Layer AI (HL-AI)--user-owned,…
Blockchain is challenging the status quo of the central trust infrastructure currently prevalent in the Internet towards a design principle that is underscored by decentralization, transparency, and trusted auditability. In ideal terms,…
AI requires heavy amounts of storage and compute with assets that are commonly stored in AI Hubs. AI Hubs have contributed significantly to the democratization of AI. However, existing implementations are associated with certain benefits…
Data sharing is very important for accelerating scientific research, business innovations, and for informing individuals. Yet, concerns over data privacy, cost, and lack of secure data-sharing solutions have prevented data owners from…
Social media platforms like Facebook and Reddit host thousands of user-governed online communities. These platforms sanction communities that frequently violate platform policies; however, public perceptions of such sanctions remain…
Blockchain technology transformed the digital sphere by providing a transparent, secure, and decentralized platform for data security across a range of industries, including cryptocurrencies and supply chain management. Blockchain's…
The architecture of public discourse has been profoundly reshaped by social media platforms, which mediate interactions at an unprecedented scale and complexity. This study analyzes user behavior across six platforms over 33 years,…
With most content distributed online and mediated by platforms, there is a pressing need to understand the ecosystem of content creation and consumption. A considerable body of recent work shed light on the one-sided market on…
Powered by large language models, a new genre of multi-agent social platforms has emerged. Apps such as Social.AI deploy numerous AI agents that emulate human behavior, creating unprecedented bot-centric social networks. Yet, existing…
Rideshare platforms exert significant control over workers through algorithmic systems that can result in financial, emotional, and physical harm. What steps can platforms, designers, and practitioners take to mitigate these negative…
Thanks to the advances in machine learning, data-driven analysis tools have become valuable solutions for various applications. However, there still remain essential challenges to develop effective data-driven methods because of the need to…
Our online lives generate a wealth of behavioral records -'digital footprints'- which are stored and leveraged by technology platforms. This data can be used to create value for users by personalizing services. At the same time, however, it…
From politicians to podcast hosts, online platforms have systematically banned (``deplatformed'') influential users for breaking platform guidelines. Previous inquiries on the effectiveness of this intervention are inconclusive because 1)…
Content moderation is a widely used strategy to prevent the dissemination of irregular information on social media platforms. Despite extensive research on developing automated models to support decision-making in content moderation, there…
Social media platforms offer flagging, a technical feature that empowers users to report inappropriate posts or bad actors to reduce online harm. The deceptively simple flagging interfaces on nearly all major social media platforms disguise…
Scholarly communication is today immersed in publish or perish culture that propels noncooperative behaviour in the sense of strategic games played by researchers. Here we introduce and describe a blockchain based platform for decentralized…
Offering an architecture for social networking in which people have agency over their personal information and social graph is an open challenge. Here we present a grassroots architecture for serverless, permissionless, peer-to-peer social…