Jonas Fegert

On the Ethics of Using TWONs: TWON Policy Brief #1

Researchers of the TWON consortium have achieved another milestone regarding the communication of results and insights of our EU-funded research project. As we are breaking new ground at the intersection of diverse academic discplines, we are confronted with new ethical questions relating to our work. A Digital Twin of an Online Social Network (TWON) may be a powerful instrument for researching and regulating digital public spaces. Yet, the vast and detailed datasets on user behaviour also pose significant ethical risks. TWONs could be used to undermine user interests and democratic norms. Important questions arise with regard to the technological tools we are developing: Who should have access to these tools? How should these tools be regulated?

As scholars researching the relationship of social and political dynamics on one hand and digital technologies and communicative settings on the other hand, we do not want to shy away from these important normative questions: The answers to these questions may well determine the societal impact of our joint research project. Therefore, we aim to address these crucial normative and ethical questions heads on. Our first TWON Policy Brief, thus, focuses on these questions, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations in our research and the dissemination of our findings. The policy brief sketches out possible approaches to TWONs, different governance and regulation frameworks as well as their risks and benefits.

The full report can be found here.

2024-10-28_TWON-policy-brief Download

Consortium Meeting in Dubrovnik

The first half of our 3-year project has passed. So, it was time to come together as a consortium, share our progress and discuss the next steps.

Hosted by Marko Grobelnik and his team, we met at Jozef Stefan Institute’s partner organization, the Center for Advanced Academic Studies, in beautiful Dubrovnik. After an opening keynote by Prof. Marko Tadić who is a linguist at the University of Zagreb, we updated each other on the status of the TWON and decided to build a demonstrator – the Twonny! The Twonny will help us to communicate the results and insights of our complex research project ot a wider public. Apart from that we discussed the design of our case studies with Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and Slovenska tiskovna agencija (STA) and planned our work in the coming months.

The last day was kicked off with a workshop by the FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik on stakeholders and policy recommendations. The advisory board member Judith Peterka delivered an input and the team worked on policy recommendations, that participants of DialoguePerspectives’ TWON Citizen Lab had drafted. The day ended with a hackathon to find and fix bugs together.

Of course we also enjoyed the sea, went for a swim and had excellent Croatian seafood – and took the opportunity to grow together as a team and recharge our batteries for the work ahead.

How to build digital Spaces: Modeling, data analysis, and qualitative approaches.

MODIS 2024 Workshop Recap

The MODIS 2024 workshop, recently held as part of the Horizon Europe projects TWON and SoMe4Dem, successfully gathered experts from various fields to explore the role of online social networks (OSN) in shaping public opinion and democracy. Attendees discussed the latest research on misinformation, AI’s influence on digital platforms, and strategies to counter harmful narratives. The event highlighted key advancements in modeling user behavior and fostering resilience to propaganda, paving the way for future innovation in this critical area. OSNs were once believed to have an enormous potential to foster democratic debates and processes. In recent years, however, OSNs have been associated with various challenges for democracies and public discourse. These debates are often structured around key words such as echo chambers and filter bubbles and have garnered immense public attention. Research from computational social sciences, on the other hand, has painted a more nunanced picture. The symposium brought together insights from a broad range of research approaches, reflecting on methodologies and discussing future pathways and research agendas.

TWON’s Michael Mäs opened the workshop with his introduction. Later in the workshop he provided insights into his work as part of the TWON consortium, highlighting the scientific, technical, and ethical challenges that are linked to building a Twin of an Online Social Network (TWON).

For more details, visit the MODIS 2024 page.

Panel Discussion Recap: The Intersection of Generative AI and Online Social Networks

In a panel discussion hosted by AlgorithmWatch in Berlin, the FZI’s Jonas Fegert emphasized the inseparable link between Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Online Social Networks (OSNs). He argued that to fully understand platform mechanisms, we need to develop Digital Twins of Online Social Networks (TWONs), which will provide greater insight into how these platforms function and influence user interactions. With our joint research project, we are taking important stapes in this direction.

The discussion explored the growing role of Generative AI in shaping online communication and the importance of transparent oversight to address the ethical and societal implications of these technologies. In the light of multiple state elections in Germany, the immediate political effects of OSNs and AI were another focal point of the discussion.

A Call to Action: New Paper on Youth Online Mental Health

The World Health Organization (WHO) has put forward guiding principles on online mental health for young people. In a newly published study, TWON-researchers integrate the WHO framework into a European context. They emphasize the impact of digital platforms and online social networks (OSNs) on mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified both the usage of digital technologies and a mental health crisis that is affecting young people in particular. Traditional services are increasingly losing touch with the young target group. Substantial challenges arise from the need to provide accessible and flexible mental health support while ensuring adherence to evidence-based guidelines.

The authors stress the special character of the European context: Typically, most young Europeans are growing up as digital natives, given the broad accessibility of advanced technology. Yet, there are important regional differences concerning the approach to mental health and the influence of social stigma related to the concept. Taking into account socioeconomic discrepancies and varying degrees of media literacy across Europe, this stresses the need for culturally sensitive mental health support. So far, online mental health services are often provided by independent organizations. But like other health-related services and products, the sector is in need of a sound regulatory framework to ensure both the quality and accessibility of services.

This highlights the need to gain a better understanding of platform mechanisms and the effects of algorithmic hyper-personalization and, therefore, the importance of our joint project TWON. Based on their research, the authors developed five core recommendations:

1. The specific European context must be considered.

2. Quality and accessibility of services must be balanced carefully.

3. Involving young people and families, leveraging their knowledge while enhancing digital literacy, is key.

4. The rise of AI must be addressed, concerning both the potential of AI for developing mental health support and the risks of biases and misinformation.

5. A regulatory framework must be developed to ensure safety, effectiveness, and ethical standards.

If you want to learn more about the issue, you can access the full article here!

New Publication on the Theoretical Foundations of Building a TWON

In a study recently published in the European Journal of Futures Research, Ljubiša Bojić (JSI) and his team explored a multidisciplinary approach to testing and aligning artificial intelligence (AI), with a special focus on large language models (LLMs). They investigated a simulation-based multi-agent system replicating a real-world environment. In this case, the paper focuses on a digital replication of a city, populated by “digital citizens” that are simulating complex social structures and behaviours. This theoretical work is vital for our joint research project and provides valuable insights for the construction of a Twin of an Online Social Network (TWON).

The article identifies theoretical perspectives from diverse disciplines that can contribute to developing AI that is socially responsible and aligned with human values. The strength of the article lies in its ability to bring together theoretical perspectives from fields as diverse as sociology, social psychology, computer science, physics, biology, and economics. In this multidisciplinary approach, the study resembles the TWON project as a whole – bringing together researchers from across Europe and from diverse academic backgrounds.

If you want to learn more, you can access the full article here.

Refining Deliberative Standards for Online Political Communication: Introducing a Summative Approach to Designing Deliberative Recommender Systems

How can Social Media best foster democratic debates? In a new paper, TWON’s very own Sjoerd Stolwijk, Michael Heseltine, Corinna Oschatz, and Damian Trilling challenge the notion that a perfect debate on social media platforms is a desirable outcome.

Over the last few years, diagnoses that the democracies of post-industrial nations of the global north are in decline have spread like proverbial wildfire. Often times, the way that social media continues shaping our lives and interactions with one another is held at least partially accountable for its ostensible effect on larger societal structures.

Contrasting the established “additive” paradigm of deliberative democracy research, Stolwijk, Heseltine, Oschatz and Trilling “propose an alternative conception of debate quality for online platforms, based on the recently proposed systematic, summative approach to deliberative democracy”. Using this approach, the researchers shift the focus from singular factors of deliberation to more systemic interdependences of deliberative factors and their effects on society at large.

Starting with an outline of critiques of the additive approach and its unitary implications, Stolwijk et al. inquire into the effects of deliberation indicators on one another as opposed to their effects on a monolithic deliberation. Continuing, they pose the question of exactly where online platforms fit into the larger system of deliberative democracy and whether they can be placed within a ‘micro-meso-macro’-layer approach.

On the base of this contextualisation, the authors move on to propose the ‘summative approach’ to deliberative democracy and online platforms’ role within it, arriving at the proposition that online communication should be viewed as complementary to existing forms of deliberation rather than a replacement.

“when facilitating debate between citizens, instead of aiming for civil conversation, it might be better for (macro) deliberative democracy, if in some cases people are allowed some incivility to make suppressed voices heard or to create a communicative environment where some might feel more at home, where they feel they don’t need to be eloquent and highly educated to be allowed to speak up”

The authors included a comparative table containing both ‘additive’ and ‘summative’ indicators for successful deliberation, both as an overview and an invitation for other researchers to contribute and improve. Concluding remarks reiterate the paper’s findings and summarise the scientific value of the ‘summative’ approach.

In an effort to promote inclusivity and accessibility, papers published by the TWON consortium are published as open-source. So check out our paper for free, published here.

Consortium Meeting in Karlsruhe in October 2023

Six months after our project kick-off in Amsterdam, the TWON consortium gathered for its second consortium meeting in Karlsruhe on October 5^th and October 6^th of 2023. The hosts, FZI and KIT, planned two jam-packed days of workshops, presentations and activities to catch each other up-to-speed on the different developing pieces and work packages comprising TWON.

We spent the majority of the day on Thursday learning from each other about the progress and challenges of each work package. Thursday morning, Prof. Michael Mäs (KIT) presented his progress on the modelling of TWON based on social network theory and computational sociology, and Simon Münker (University of Trier) layed out his preceding and upcoming work regarding the data collection to estimate our TWON. Krisztian Buza and Abdul Sittar (both JSI) then presented to us their progress on actually building the digital twin of an online social network (OSN), which will be the backbone of the project.

In the afternoon, Sjoerd Stolwijk and Michael Heseltine from the University of Amsterdam presented the metrics they are developing for the evaluation of democratic debates in OSNs. They also gave their insights on how they will be examining the impact of filter bubbles and disinformation campaigns on opinion dynamics and the spread of disinformation. Collectively, we then brainstormed ideas on how to best implement the case studies. We ended the day with a delicious dinner at Il Caminetto in Karlsruhe.

The consortium brainstorms case study implementation

On Friday, our work mostly revolved around the question of how to communicate our results with the public and specific stakeholders, and how to disseminate findings effectively in the scientific community. Jonas Fegert (FZI) kicked us off with a presentation of the strategies developed by the FZI-led work package on dissemination activities, and presented strategies for reaching citizens, social actors, stakeholders and politicians at different levels and through different channels. We subsequently broke out into groups to garner feedback from the consortium members – each contributing to the workshop by providing their own unique scholarly, regional, and personal perspectives.

Dr. Jonas Fegert presents the dissemination strategy

The consortium meeting ended on a high note, namely the Renaissance 3.0 exhibition at Karlsruhe’s Center for Art and Media (ZKM). The exhibition – all about the interconnectivity of research, artistry, and their social impacts – was an inspiration to the consortium, and we left Karlsruhe ready to hit new milestones in our work packages. The next consortium meeting will take place in Trier in March of 2023 – until then, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Mastodon and check our blog for updates on the progress of the project.

We got started!

In April of 2023, our international consortium – comprised of eight partner institutions from various European countries – gathered to mark the launch of TWON in Amsterdam. The project will use digital twins of social networks to explore the impact of social media platform mechanisms, such as content filtering or personalization, on democratic debates.

Hosted by the University of Amsterdam, we were able to get a productive head start on the project. Over the course of three days, we begun mapping out the work in various work packages, identified potential challenges and tapped into our collective wisdom in beginning this highly complex research undertaking.

The members of our consortium returned to their respective countries with lifted spirits, and are looking forward to reunite for our second consortial meeting in Karlsruhe in October of 2023. Check out our press release for more details on TWON and the people behind it.