GEIS’s last meeting highlighted several key directions:
New Work on Platform Governance
Ongoing research, including a new preprint on the partisan effects of social media bans led by Tiago Ventura, continues to explore how platform-level interventions influence political attitudes and polarization.
Narratives Around AI Disinformation
Members emphasized a growing priority, going beyond identifying AI-generated misinformation to analyzing the broader narratives and discourse surrounding it, including how these narratives can intersect with conspiracy theories.
Conferences, Workshops, and Service to the Community
GEIS members are looking to co-organize a variety of democracy-related workshops after the success of NLP4Democracy last year, and many members are participating in major conferences in the coming months, including ICWSM, IC2S2, and APSA. We hope to see you there!
Strengthening Community Engagement
New initiatives, including short project “lightning talks,” and public-facing events at Maryland Day, are helping us build a more connected and visible research community. Come see us at Maryland Day 2026, where we will have demonstrations of civic tech.
