4º Workshop

Main Risks and Threats in Digital Environments

The submission and publication guidelines are the same as those for the General Conference: consult them here.

To submit an article to this Workshop, please access the following link and include the code “WS_4” before the title of your contribution: https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=icomta25.

Abstract

Digital platforms have profoundly transformed communication and social interaction, fostering media fragmentation and civic participation, while also intensifying risks that threaten social cohesion, human rights, and democracy. Among these challenges are disinformation, toxic language and hate speech, polarization, and online harassment.

The spread of false, biased, or manipulated content erodes public trust in key institutions, promotes rumors, beliefs, and prejudices, and hinders informed decision-making. Toxic language and online hate speech disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, fostering intolerance, discrimination, stigmatization, and symbolic violence against minorities. These phenomena further fuel polarization, amplified by algorithms that create echo chambers where intra-group perceptions and beliefs reinforce one another. Such polarization deepens ideological divisions, weakens dialogue, and reduces opportunities for mutual understanding.

Online harassment, threats, and incitement to physical violence are the most harmful manifestations of these issues—toxicity, hate, and polarization—posing a direct threat to the personal and collective safety of stigmatized groups. In this context, it becomes urgent to understand the dynamics of these risks and their multidimensional impacts, as well as to develop effective strategies for mitigation.

This workshop is designed as a space for critical analysis and dialogue, exploring these digital threats in various domains, with a focus on deconstructing their dynamics, understanding their scope and harm, and proposing possible solutions from academic, social, technological, and/or political perspectives. Its purpose is to foster a constructive debate on how to address these challenges, ensuring a safer, more ethical, and inclusive digital coexistence.

Topics

  • Disinformation
  • Toxicity
  • Hate Speech
  • Polarization
  • Harassment
  • Digital Platforms
  • Social Media
General Coordinator
  • Javier J. Amores, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Technical Coordinator
  • Martín Oller Alonso, Universidad de Salamanca (Spain)
Organizing Committee
  • Carlos Arcila Calderón, Universidad de Salamanca (Spain)
  • Patricia Sánchez Holgado, Universidad de Salamanca (Spain)
Scientific Committee
  • Constanza Mujica, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  • Marcelo Santos, Universidad Diego Portales (Chile)
  • Paula Walker, Universidad de Santiago de Chile
  • Maximiliano Frías Vázquez, Universidad de Salamanca (Spain)
  • David Blanco Herrero, Universiteit van Amsterdam (Netherlands)