Program

Pre-Symposium Data Donation Sprint

September 30, 2026 · Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin

We are excited to announce that we will host a Pre-Symposium Data Donation Sprint on the day before the symposium (September 30) at the Weizenbaum Institute. This event is supported and co-organized by the Data Donation Lab at UZH Zurich. In the sprint, we want to jointly develop and use a living web app that allows the community to document and map data donation packages across platforms and over time, lowering the barrier for researchers who want to work with this method.

Register for the sprint via the Weizenbaum Institute ticket shop. Due to limited capacity, spots are allocated in order of priority: presenting authors, sprint participants, co-authors, then other applicants.

Keynote Speaker

Prof. Dr. Jasper Dag Tjaden
University of Potsdam

More: Potsdam Social Media Monitor (PSMM)

Bot for Good: Social Media Data Acquisition through Social Research Bots

Major social media platforms have increasingly restricted access to their APIs, thereby constraining researchers' ability to systematically investigate the societal impacts of these platforms. In response to these limitations, social research bots have emerged as a novel methodological approach, enabling the study of platform algorithms and content dynamics beyond official data access channels. These fully automated agents simulate user behavior, with their generated feeds subsequently collected and analyzed.

In this talk, Jasper Tjaden will present key insights from the Potsdam Social Media Monitor, highlighting both methodological lessons learned from the deployment of social research bots and recent developments in the evolving landscape of social media data access.

Panel Discussion

Data Donation where do you go? Regulatory debates on the rights to data access.

Conference Dinner

Evening of October 1, 2026

There will be a self-paid conference dinner on the evening of October 1. Further details will be shared closer to the event.