Call for Papers

The Second International Workshop on Computational Methods in Cybersafety

The theme of cybersafety is an important emerging research topic on the Internet that manifests itself daily as users navigate the Web and networked applications. Examples of cybersafety issues include cyberbullying, cyberthreats, recruiting minors via Internet services for nefarious purposes, using deceptive means to dupe vulnerable populations, exhibiting misbehaving behaviors such as using profanity or flashing in online video chats, spreading rumors or hate speech via WWW services, and many others. These issues have a direct negative impact on the social, psychological and in some cases physical well-being of users. An important characteristic of these issues is that they fall in a grey legal area, where perpetrators may claim freedom of speech or rights to free expression despite causing harm.

We invite submissions of research on computational methods for addressing cybersafety. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

  • Human-computer interaction issues surrounding cybersafety
  • Data mining and machine learning approaches for cybersafety
  • Social science aspects of cybersafety
  • Cyberbullying
  • Cyberthreats, coercion, and predation
  • Hate speech
  • Social media vandalism
  • Misbehaving users in online video chat services
  • Trolls in chat rooms, discussion boards, and other social media
  • Deception to shape opinion, such as fake news, fake reviews
  • Deceptive techniques targeted at vulnerable populations such as the elderly and K-12 minors
  • Bad actors in social media
  • Online exposure of inappropriate material to minors
  • Education and promotion of safe spaces
  • Interface design to improve cybersafety
  • Remedies for preventing or thwarting cybersafety issues
  • Grooming and sexual predation
  • Radicalization via social media

Paper Submission

Authors are invited to submit papers of 4-8 pages in length. Papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format, using the ACM SIG Proceedings format (http://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template), with a font size no smaller than 9pt. The formatted manuscript should be submitted via email to cybersafety2017@gmail.com.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published in the companion proceedings of the WWW conference and the ACM digital library.