📬 🌐 ***Call for Papers: DHOW 2026 – Diffusion of Harmful Content on the Web** *
📍 *Co-located with WebSci 2026 | Braunschweig, Germany | May 26–29, 2026*
✨ We’re excited to announce the extended CFP for the DHOW 2026 workshop! Join us in tackling one of the most pressing challenges of our digital age: the **spread of harmful content across platforms, languages, and formats**.
🔍 Why this matters: With the rise of AI, social media, and global connectivity, harmful content — from misinformation 📰 and hate speech 🔥 to deepfakes 🎭 and self-harm triggers 🛑 — spreads faster than ever. But here’s the catch: researchers often study these issues in isolation — one platform, one language, one type. 👉 This leads to **"harmful content hopping"** — spreaders move to evade detection.
🎯 Our mission? Bring together diverse research under one umbrella 🤝 to: - Study **cross-platform, multi-lingual, multimodal** harmful content - Combine **text, image, audio, and video analysis** 🖼️🔊🎥 - Explore the role of **Generative AI** 🤖 and **Explainable AI** 🧠 in detection & defense - Understand **psychological impacts** 🧠 and **user experiences** 👥 - Address urgent topics like **elections, war, and disinformation** in 2025 🌍
📊 We’re looking for scientific contributions on: - 📊 Analysis of hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, self-harm, offensive content - ✅ Computational fact-checking & AI-driven detection - 🤖 Role of Generative AI in mitigating harm - 🎭 Deepfakes & their societal impact - 🌍 Multi-lingual & cross-platform detection (e.g., spam, bots, trolls) - 🧪 Qualitative & quantitative studies on mental health effects - 📥 LLM-assisted data collection & annotation - 👥 User studies & human-AI collaboration in defense - 🧩 Explainable AI for transparency & trust
📅 Important Dates: - 📅 Submission deadline: **March 15, 2026 (AOE)** - ✅ Notification of acceptance: **March 29, 2026** - 📤 Camera-ready due: **April 2, 2026** - 🎉 Workshop: **May 26–29, 2026**
🔗 Submit your work here: 👉 [Submission Portal (OpenReview)](https://openreview.net/group?id=acmmm.org/WebSci/2026/Workshop/DHOW)
🌐 [Workshop Website](https://dhow-workshop.github.io/2026/)
👥 We’re building a community!* This workshop is more than a venue — it’s a **collaborative space** for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to share insights, spark innovation, and shape a safer, more responsible internet 🌱.
👨💻 Organizing Team: - Thomas Mandl (University of Hildesheim, Germany) - Haiming Liu (University of Southampton, UK) - Gautam Kishore Shahi (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) - Amit Kumar Jaiswal (IIT BHU Varanasi, India) - Durgesh Nandini (University of Bayreuth, Germany) - Luis-Daniel Ibáñez (University of Southampton, UK)
#DHOW2026 #WebSci2026 #HarmfulContent #AIforGood #SocietalAI #DigitalSafety #ResearchCommunity