[FoME] Topics on Internet Censorship and Surveillance (TICS) #2: Call for Papers

[Vasilis Ververis]

* Topics on Internet Censorship and Surveillance (TICS) #2: Call for Papers *

Online version of this email: https://tics.site/cfp/

The 2nd TICS will focus on AI-assisted information controls.
Collocated with the 18th IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web
Intelligence (https://webintelligence2019.com), will be held in Thessaloniki,
Greece, 2019.10.14.

The ever-increasing demand for online content moderation and user profiling sees
the adaptation of web intelligence concepts that were developed in good faith,
into a censorship and surveillance apparatus owned by corporations and national
agencies. Consequently, users are bound to an Orwellian Internet where
mainstream platforms  such as search engines, social media, and content
providers  place the blame for filter bubbles and extensive user behavioral
analysis on artificial intelligence. This is alarming, since it is particularly
difficult to distinguish between AI bias and deliberate human intervention. TICS
aims to explore the technological, socio-economic, and legal means and driving
forces behind these issues, and to propose alternative directions for building a
semantic and human-centric web that promotes empowerment of individuals to
decide on how their identities are  or are not  constructed and aggregated online.

The goal of TICS is to raise awareness around the implications of network
interference, by inviting researchers from complementary disciplines to consider
the effect of their own domain on online censorship and surveillance. Along
those lines, we invite submissions that address the following topics:

* Research on technologies and policies that build upon advancements on the
    field of web intelligence to imply blocking, limitation or distortion of the
    availability of network services and online content
* The application of web intelligence concepts such as behavioral modeling,
    data mining, and social network analytics to target groups and individuals
    by law enforcement agencies and private corporations
* The implications of algorithmic and AI-assisted user content classification
    (such as for identification of hatespeech, copyright, or disinformation)
* Novel techniques that leverage web intelligence to defend netizens against
    censorship and surveillance, or privacy enhancements to the existing AI
    infrastructure to mitigate these threats
* Measurement methodologies that detect network interference or content
    moderation based on crowd knowledge or web analytics
* The socio-economic consequences and implementation limitations and fallacies
    of upload filters and recommendation systems
* Business models and amendments to legal frameworks which promote the use of
    web intelligence in ways that build a pluralistic, private, and
    human-centric experience without violating user freedoms

* Important dates *

    Paper Submission due: July 19th, 2019 July 10th, 2019
    Notification to authors: Aug 15th, 2019
    Final, camera ready papers, due: Aug 25th, 2019
    Workshop date: Oct 14th, 2019

* Paper Submission *

Submitted papers should be limited to a maximum of 8 pages in the standard ACM
2-column format. The ACM Proceedings Manuscript Formatting Guidelines can be
found at: https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template

Paper Submission Page:
https://wi-lab.com/cyberchair/2019/wi19/scripts/submit.php?subarea=S04&undisplay_detail=1&wh=/cyberchair/2019/wi19/scripts/ws_submit.php

Program Chairs

* Marios Isaakidis, University College London, marios at tics.site
* Vasilis Ververis, Humboldt University Berlin, vasilis at tics.site
* Gunnar Wolf, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, gwolf at tics.site

You can contact all of the chairs by addressing your mail to chairs at tics.site.
Program Committee

* Apostolos Pyrgelis, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
* Bogdan Kulynych, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
* Chrystalenni Loizidou, University of Nicosia
* Gabriele de Seta, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
* Keith McManamen, Psiphon Inc.
* Savvas A. Zannettou, Cyprus University of Technology
* Will Scott, University of Michigan


Cheers,
~Vasilis