printer friendly pageCS 152: Trust and Safety Engineering (COMM 122)
An introduction to the ways consumer internet services are abused to cause real human harm and the potential operational, product and engineering responses. Students will learn about spam, fraud, account takeovers, the use of social media by terrorists, misinformation, child exploitation, harassment, bullying and self-harm. This will include studying both the technical and sociological roots of these harms and the ways various online providers have responded. Our goal is to provide students with an understanding of how the technologies they may build have been abused in the past and how they might spot future abuses earlier. The class is taught by a long-time practitioner and a professor of communication, and supplemented by guest lecturers from tech companies and non-profits. For those taking this course for CS credit, the prerequisite is CS106B or equivalent for grad students, and this course fulfills the Technology in Society requirement. Content note: This class will cover real-world harmful behavior and expose students to potentially upsetting material.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
Instructors:
Stamos, A. (PI)
POLISCI 143C: The Politics of Internet Abuse
There are many ways in which the internet is abused to cause human harm. Terrorists use social media for recruitment. Government trolls harass opposition politicians and mass report activist accounts for supposed platform violations. Foreign and domestic actors post videos full of disinformation. Chat apps are used to incite violence. This course will explore political science research on these topics and how online platforms currently respond to these threats. Students will gain an understanding of the most pressing challenges in global communication platforms and a strong foundation for future research and work on mitigating these harms. For the final project, students in this class will partner with students in "
CS152: Trust and Safety Engineering" to design policy guidelines to respond to harmful content in a particular country that the CS students will implement as a working bot. No programming skills are needed to enroll in "The Politics of Internet Abuse". Content note: This class will cover real-world harmful behaviors (such as hate speech, harassment and child exploitation) and will expose students to potentially upsetting material.
Last offered: Spring 2023
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