Workshop announcement

AI systems filter information on social media, news outlets, and search engines, shaping public discourse and democratic processes. Recommendation and moderation algorithms optimize objectives that are privately chosen by firms or state actors, potentially affecting the spread of misinformation and political polarization, especially around elections.

This workshop will explore open questions at the intersection of economics, public policy, information and computer sciences: What are the consequences of content ranking and moderation? What is the role of governments in information control? What institutional arrangements could align algorithmic objectives with democratic values? The goal is to link academic research with platform design and regulatory policy.

Workshop format

The goal of this workshop is to provide a venue for extended in-depth interaction, and the development of research agendas, formulating “big open questions,” with collaboration across field boundaries. This workshop will involve speakers from economic theory, applied microeconomics, computer science, and policy practitioners. The workshop will start with a series of tutorial lectures. The goal of these lectures is to bring all participants on the same page, especially with regards to the relevant state of research in other sub-fields. These will be followed by talks on frontier work. In these talks, the speakers will give an overview of their own work, and other related frontier work. The schedule will allow for extended discussions after each talk.

Registration (for attendees)

Speakers at this workshop have been personally invited. Attendance at the tutorial lectures and frontier talks is open to all, both in person (subject to space constraints) and online (via Zoom). To register for either in-person attendance or Zoom participation, please fill out the following form:

Sign-up form coming soon

Talks will also be live-streamed and recordings will be made available, on this Youtube channel.

Logistics (for speakers)

  • Date: May 25-27, 2026.
  • Location: Oxford, UK. Details TBD.
  • Accommodation: Provided. Details TBD.
  • Pub evening: 6:15pm, May 25 (open to all conference attendants).
  • Conference Dinner: Nuffield College, 7pm, May 26 (speakers only).
  • Contact: For logistical questions, please contact aarushi.kalra@economics.ox.ac.uk.
  • Papers and Slides: Please also email these to aarushi.kalra@economics.ox.ac.uk, and we will post them on this website before the conference.
  • Videos of talks will be recorded and posted online; please let us know if you don’t want to be recorded.

Confirmed speakers and proposed topics

  1. Generative AI and information quality: Ananya Sen 
  2. Recommender systems and engagement maximization: Benjamin Hébert 
  3. Algorithmic filtering - a regulator’s perspective: Andreas Hofele

Further invited speakers

  1. Political effects of information filtering: Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
  2. State actors and surveillance: Noam Yuchtman 
  3. Technology policy: Amba Kak 
  4. User preferences and machine learning: Manish Raghavan