The 2021 Data on Purpose (DoP) conference featured data scientists, researchers, policymakers, leaders of nonprofits and foundations, private industry professionals, and other experts sharing the latest research- and practice-based insights into digital technologies that can strengthen our democracy and civil society. SSIR's editors recapped the virtual conference and assembled a list of related articles.

Pre-Conference Session: Syndemic Crises, Philanthropy, and Civil Society – A Discussion of Blueprint 2021

Lucy Bernholz of the Stanford PACS Digital Civil Society Lab, Jara Dean-Coffey of the Equitable Evaluation Initiative, Mario Lugay of Justice Funders, and Divya Siddarth of Microsoft discussed the challenges philanthropy and civil society face in the midst of several intertwined crises, the changes needed, and ways forward.

Session 1: For the Good of Society: Is Regulating the Internet the Answer?

Marietje Schaake of Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Kelly Born of the Hewlett Foundation discussed the relationship between democracy, the internet, and social media in today’s global society and the different paths to protecting their misuse by bad actors.

Session 2: Making and Breaking Video: Digital Media Manipulation and Society

Maneesh Agrawala of Stanford University presented several recent projects that aim to facilitate the creation of video content and explored the potential for the misuse of the technologies.

Session 3: Disinformation, Misinformation, and Our Digital Information Ecosystem

Katherine Maher of the Wikimedia Foundation, Jesse Lehrich of Accountable Tech, Nick Pickles of Twitter, and Samantha Bradshaw of Stanford University’s Internet Observatory and Digital Civil Society Lab discussed how to fight the spread of disinformation.

Read the full article about the 2021 Data on Purpose conference at Stanford Social Innovation Review.