THE INTERNET DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE

A platform for positive change in an interconnected world

The Internet Democracy Initiative studies problems that have widespread information and social media implications. This initiative provides leadership in understanding the role of the internet in structuring democracy, society, and markets.

Our focus areas

The Imperative

How can the internet be a constructive force in society? The early days of the internet offered the promise of decentralized democratic transformation, social connection, easy access to high quality information, and a platform to diverse voices. While there are glimpses of these possibilities still, the internet today is strikingly centralized and dominated by relatively few gatekeepers, with society riven by polarization.

The bottom-up utopian vision of the 1990s has seemingly turned into a 2020s dystopia of misinformation and harassment, producing calls for aggressive top-down control by corporations and government. The objective of this initiative is to support rigorous research on the problems of the contemporary information ecosystem, and to evaluate the potential of interventions into and uses of the affordances of the internet to support connection and to empower democracy.

Post-Post-API Age: Studying Digital Platforms in Scant Data Access Times

A new paper from Kai-Cheng Yang aims to assess how platforms make data available under the DSA, we conducted a comprehensive survey followed by in-depth interviews with 19 researchers to understand their experiences with data access in this new era. The team’s findings reveal significant challenges in accessing social media data, with researchers facing multiple barriers including complex API application processes, difficulties obtaining credentials, and limited API usability. These challenges have exacerbated existing institutional, regional, and financial inequities in data access. Based on these insights, they provide actionable recommendations for platforms, researchers, and policymakers to foster more equitable and effective data access, while encouraging broader dialogue within the CSCW community around interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder solutions.

Fairness perceptions of AI in grading systems: Examining how discontent with the status quo and outcome favorability reduce AI reluctance

In a new study form IDI’s Myojung Chung, researchers investigated students’ aversion to AI grading systems compared to human professors, focusing on how dissatisfaction with the current evaluation system and grade outcomes affect fairness perceptions. Drawing from 228 college students in South Korea, the experiment tested three hypotheses: (1) students show AI reluctance, (2) dissatisfaction with the current system mitigates the AI reluctance, and (3) this mitigation is contingent on whether students receive high or low grades. Results confirm a general aversion to AI graders. et, students who are dissatisfied with the status quo system displayed increased preference for AI graders, especially when receiving low grades. In contrast, those receiving high grades continued to prefer human professors regardless of dissatisfaction.

Trump calls AI pope image a joke, but experts say it’s no laughing matter

John Wihbey spoke to Reuters about the recent AI photos published on the White House social media, including an AI-generated image of Donald Trump as the pope. “I think we are seeing a new phenomenon – the merging of social media and AI power, organized for political power and narrative dominance,” said Wihbey.

Researchers call for new way of thinking about content moderation

The research finds that Facebook posts removed for violating standards or other reasons have already been seen by at least three-quarters of the people who would be predicted to ever see them.
“Content takedowns on Facebook just don’t matter all that much, because of how long they take to happen,” said Laura Edelson in The Washington Post.

Announcing the 18th Annual Political Networks and Computational Social Science Conference (PolNet-PaCSS), Hosted by Harvard University and Northeastern University.

Workshops: August 11-12, 2025

Panels: August 13-14, 2025

Learn More

Event Recap:

COMPUTATION + JOURNALISM SYMPOSIUM

October 2024

The Computation + Journalism Symposium is a space for anyone working at, or curious about, the intersections of computation and journalism. This includes practicing journalists, independent data storytellers, computational social scientists, artists, digital humanities scholars, cartographers, and others. It has been hosted in prior years at Stanford, Northwestern, Georgia Tech, Columbia, ETH Zurich, and Univ. of Miami. Watch the event on our Youtube channel.

What we do

Collaborating across Northeastern’s interdisciplinary networks

The IDI is developing a clearinghouse of best practices and algorithms, and building a resource set for organizations around the world interested in defending democracy and its institutions.

Explore our network

Creating next-gen resources for industry and community

The Internet Democracy Initiative, building our NSF internet observatory, will study problems that have widespread information and social media implications.

Read about the NIO