Internet Democracy Initiative Northeastern University

The Internet Democracy Initiative studies problems that have widespread information and social media implications. This initiative provides leadership in understanding the role of the internet in structuring democracy, society, and markets. How can the internet be a constructive force in society? The early days of the internet offered the promise of decentralized democratic transformation, social connection, easy access to high quality information, and a platform to diverse voices. While there are glimpses of these possibilities still, the internet today is strikingly centralized and dominated by relatively few gatekeepers, with society riven by polarization. The bottom-up utopian vision of the 1990s has seemingly turned into a 2020s dystopia of misinformation and harassment, producing calls for aggressive top-down control by corporations and government.

The objective of this initiative is to support rigorous research on the problems of the contemporary information ecosystem, and to evaluate the potential of interventions into and uses of the affordances of the internet... The 50-state report, published as part of the multiuniversity Civic Health and Institutions Project (CHIP50), found that views about how and whether to rein in AI tools don’t follow typical red-blue state divides. Missouri and Washington, for example, expressed the strongest views about a lack of regulatory oversight, while New York and Tennessee were most worried about government overreach. Featuring David Lazer, John Wihbey and Hong Qu You're visiting our newly launched website! We'll be adding more content and pages in the coming weeks, so check back for updates.

The Institute for Information, the Internet, and Democracy at Northeastern University IIID conducts high-impact, responsive research that keeps pace with rapidly evolving technology while addressing its profound implications for users and society. We don't just study technology's effects on democracy—we actively work to understand, evaluate, and improve how these powerful tools can better serve democratic values and institutions. In May 2024, the Internet Democracy Initiative will host an Internet and Society Conference at the Northeastern University-London campus. Like the IDI, the conference will focus on the role of the internet in structuring democracy, society, and markets with emphasis on areas that have widespread information and social media implications.

Conference sessions will feature academic, industry, and government experts engaging with one another across five thematic areas: The goal of the conference is to further collaborations that can bring about the types of changes that the IDI imagines. Across the sessions, speakers and participants will be asked to consider mechanisms to ensure that historically excluded voices are represented, amplified, and considered in data structures and decision-making processes. Copyright © MediaWell / About / Powered by Research AMP – a product of the Social Science Research Council The Internet Democracy Initiative is providing new insights and solutions relating to challenges associated with information technologies, from areas such as democratic participation and public health to social inclusion online and the fairness of... The IDI looks to provide technical and ethics-oriented expertise on data sharing as well as real-time insights on patterns of disinformation, in order to assist with election integrity efforts.

We aim to provide audits of social platforms and representative snapshots of user behavior to inform broad-based civic efforts to improve voter and political participation. IDI is interested in partnering with civic groups to help map information flows and identify problem areas in the online ecosystem. We are exploring international collaboration to measure the impacts of foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining the policies, security, or stability of the United States and allies. The IDI will leverage data and partnerships to facilitate change in the world of online health information, helping and influencing social media platforms, search engines, and media organizations to moderate content better, boost quality... In the past, faculty have advised major platforms such as Google/YouTube and Meta/Facebook and the National Academies of Medicine, to help promote more evidence-based policies and guidance. IDI will be working on ways to ensure historically excluded voices are represented, amplified, and considered in data structures and decision-making processes.

Research will build on the robust existing scholarship from within the university community on issues of digital power and rights, focusing on mechanisms that perpetuate inequalities, political marginalization, and structural racism. The IDI’s overall work in analyzing the information environment draws on distinctive, core strengths at Northeastern University. These include: The IDI leverages Northeastern’s cross-disciplinary network of experts to form a truly future-focused and diverse ecosystem of partners. The Internet Democracy Initiative is supported by the Office of the Provost and the John S. and James.

L Knight Foundation. The National Internet Observatory aims to help researchers understand how people behave online and how platforms structure what people see. Read More >> The Center for Law, Information and Creativity (CLIC) combines the study of innovation and creativity with the School of Law’s social justice mission. Read More >> The Center for Communication, Media Innovation & Social Change is a hub for the study of race, ethnicity, and activism.

Read More >> A final reminder to register for online or in person attendance at our Internet and Society conference which takes place this Friday - now with TikTok representation alongside other tech sector, regulatory and academic... I'm pleased to announce that the Internet and Society conference I have been co-organizing (with Tom Williams, Natasha Frost and others) will take place one month from today at Northeastern University London: https://lnkd.in/eRwWQ484 Interdisciplinary... Speakers at the May 10 conference will include Melanie Dawes, chief executive of Ofcom, and Tom Wheeler, the former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, the independent communications regulator in the U.S.LONDON — A... and U.S. regulators and leading academics.Organized by Northeastern’s Internet Democracy Initiative, the “Internet and Society: The Trans-Atlantic Research Future” conference will focus on the role of the internet in structuring democracy, society and markets.Speakers will include...

And they can be good and bad,” he said. “So I think researchers have focused increasingly more on harms and risk.”His work with the Internet Democracy Initiative, funded by the not-for-profit Knight Foundation, is a bid to ensure greater transparency when it comes... “Think of it almost like a telescope for observing the heavens, but instead we are observing internet space.”Wihbey hopes the London conference can become an annual event, having drawn some notable names from the... government, as well as Claes De Vreese, a professor of AI and society at the University of Amsterdam.Ofcom’s Dawes will take part in a fireside chat with Tom Wheeler, the former chair of the... “This is a clear signal that Northeastern University London is now open for research and research collaborations in the area of the conference’s title theme of ‘Internet and Society.’ “We also have some very... We are interested in working in a way that is cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary to address them, so I’m pretty excited about this opportunity.”Patrick Daly is a Northeastern Global News reporter in London.

Email him at patrick.daly@nulondon.ac.uk and follow him on X/Twitter @bypatrickdaly.© 2025 Northeastern University Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The Internet Democracy Initiative is powered by experts in fields spanning from Cybersecurity and Privacy to Social Media and Misinformation. The Internet Democracy Initiative aims to boost an ecosystem—to empower an interdisciplinary group of scholars across Northeastern University.

The following diagram shows some of the university scholars working in related areas. The following research projects have been awarded seed grants from the IDI Local, regional, and statewide non-profit news organizations offer a bulwark against the continued shuttering of reporting outlets in an era of budgetary constraints and private equity acquisition. Such outlets offer trusted sources of information to communities yet remain hampered by fiscal limitations. Our project seeks to develop a low-cost tool for non-profit news organizations to use to generate scientifically rigorous public opinion data in their communities, which they can use in their reported coverage. SMS-to-web polling using voter file data—in which individuals are texted links to surveys to complete online, and results are matched back to the voter file and weighted based on voter history—offers a technological solution...

However, the professional firms that offer this service charge vastly more than the $0.015 per individual segment that it costs to send text messages. We propose an academic-industry-organizational collaboration in which researchers at Northeastern University (KH) and the Harvard Kennedy School (JDBK) and the political SMS vendor Good Fight Political develop a lowest-cost scalable tool for non-profit news... The vendor has agreed to price SMS messages at the industry-lowest $0.015 per segment (equal to 160 characters). The academics bring existing relationships with local non-profit news organizations in the area, and the ability to write and analyze surveys, and A/B test messages to increase response rates. Northeastern University’s Internet Democracy Initiative (IDI), led by Prof. David Lazer and an interdisciplinary group of university faculty, is a platform for positive change in a socially interconnected world.

In May 2024, the Internet Democracy Initiative will host an Internet and Society Conference at the Northeastern University-London campus. Like the IDI, the conference will focus on the role of the internet in structuring democracy, society, and markets with emphasis on areas that have widespread information and social media implications. Conference sessions will feature academic, industry, and government experts engaging with one another across five thematic areas: The goal of the conference is to further collaborations that can bring about the types of changes that the IDI imagines. Across the sessions, speakers and participants will be asked to consider mechanisms to ensure that historically excluded voices are represented, amplified, and considered in data structures and decision-making processes. Location:Northeastern University, London

Helen Margetts (Oxford Internet Institute)

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