The Center for Digital Ethics and Policy at Loyola University Chicago will host its 8th Annual Symposium on Digital Ethics Nov. 9 at Loyola’s Water Tower Campus.
The day-long event will feature experts and researchers exploring ethical questions related to digital technologies.
This year’s symposium theme is “Ethics from the Margins,” focusing on topics related to women, people of color, and others who may feel disenfranchised by and through technology.
Catherine D’Ignazio from Emerson College will give the keynote address. D’Iganzio’s research explores ways in which data and technology can contribute to community empowerment and social justice. In her talk, she will focus on “data feminism.”
Susan Fowler Rigetti, who exposed allegations of sexual harassment at Uber, will give a talk about the sexism in Silicon Valley. The viral blog post, in which she revealed the culture of sexism at tech companies, led to the ouster of Uber’s CEO. For her efforts, along with many other “silence breakers,” she was named Time Person of the Year.
Other invited speakers are Melissa Zimdars from Merrimack College and André Brock from Georgia Tech. Zimdars is an expert on fake news and will address the moral responsibility of tech companies in combatting fake news. Brock, whose groundbreaking research on “black Twitter” made him one of the leading voices on race and digital culture, completes the quartet of invited speakers.
In addition to these four talks, the event will also feature three panels in which academics from around the country will present original research papers related to the theme of the symposium. The panels, moderated by faculty of Loyola’s School of Communication, cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from algorithmic ethics to toxicity in gaming.
The event will take place in Regents Hall, located on the 16th floor of Lewis Towers, just one block east of the Water Tower. Registration for the day is $75 and includes lunch. For more information or special requests, please contact Bastiaan Vanacker, Director of the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy, at [email protected]
The Center for Digital Ethics and Policy was founded through the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago in an effort to foster more dialogue, research, and guidelines regarding ethical behavior in online and digital environments.
The center publishes essays, develops sets of best practices and hosts an annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics. Essays from previous symposiums have been published in two edited volumes, Ethics for a Digital Age (vol 1&2).