OII researchers head to FAccT 2026

Researchers and DPhil students from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, are set to attend the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAccT) in Montréal, from 25-28 June 2026. 

ACM FAccT is an interdisciplinary conference dedicated to bringing together a diverse community of scholars from computer science, law, social sciences, and humanities to investigate and tackle issues around the benefits and risks of the use of algorithmic systems in a growing number of contexts across society. 

OII researchers will contribute to these debates through the presentation of four peer-reviewed papers and one CRAFT workshop on some of the biggest risks and challenges facing AI development.  As part of their involvement in the conference, the OII researchers propose user-centred design for AI-assisted verification; community-driven approaches to preference alignment; stronger regulatory transparency requirements; and greater equity in platform moderation practices. 

Presentations to watch: 

• Basak Bozkurt – Fact-Checkers Navigating Generative AI: Practices, Boundaries, and Design Implications, presentation Saturday 27 June 2026, 11.33am-11.45am.

• Julia Sepúlveda Coelho  – What Do People Actually Want From AI? Mapping Preference Plurality, presentation Saturday 27 June, 4.06pm-4.18pm.

• Manuel Tonneau – Language Disparities in Moderation Workforce Allocation by Social Media Platforms, presentation Saturday 27 June, 10.45am-10.57am.

• CRAFT Workshop  – Stitch’n’Bitch: Collective reflections on ageism, feminism, and creative resistance through hands-on cable weaving, led by Juliette Zaccour with Sofia Hafner, Alex Edmonds, and Luc Rocher, workshop Thursday 25 June, 1:45-4:00pm.

All papers are peer reviewed and will be published in Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’26). 

OII researchers at FAccT 2026 

Basak Bozkurt 

DPhil student and lead author Basak Bozkurt will present the paper Fact-Checkers Navigating Generative AI: Practices, Boundaries, and Design Implications, co-authored with Mohsen Mosleh and Helen Margetts. 

This research explores how professional fact-checkers are navigating the rapid integration of generative AI into their workflows, drawing on interviews with 29 fact-checkers from organisations across 41 countries.  The research finds wide variation in how organisations engage with these tools and identifies ongoing tensions between generative AI and core fact-checking principles of fairness, accountability, and transparency. Crucially, the study highlights how access, affordability, and in-house capacity shape whether organisations can meaningfully adopt these tools at all.  

Her presentation, “Fact-Checkers Navigating Generative AI: Practices, Boundaries, and Design Implications,” is part of the News, Media, and Fact-Checking session on 27 June, which runs from 10:45am to 12:15pm. Basak’s presentation takes place from 11:33am to 11:45am.

Julia Sepúlveda Coelho 

Research Assistant and lead author Julia Sepúlveda Coelho will present the paper What Do People Actually Want From AI? Mapping Preference Plurality, co-authored with Scott A. Hale. 

This research finds that people want fundamentally different things from AI systems, with significant implications for how models are trained and aligned. Analysing a range of user preferences, the study finds that truthfulness is by far the most requested quality, though people interpret the term in strikingly different ways.  The research also reveals that most people actively do not want AI to be influential, and identifies notable differences in preference by gender, education, and cultural background.  

Her presentation, “What Do People Actually Want From AI? Mapping Preference Plurality,” is part of the Pluralistic Alignment session on Saturday, 27 June, which runs from 3:30pm to 4:30pm. Her presentation takes place from 4:06pm to 4:18pm in Ballroom Center. 

Manuel Tonneau 

DPhil student and lead author Manuel Tonneau will present the paper Language Disparities in Moderation Workforce Allocation by Social Media Platforms, co-authored with Diyi Liu and Scott Hale.  

This research conducts the first cross-platform audit of how human content moderation staff are distributed across languages on six major social media platforms, drawing on transparency reports mandated under the EU’s Digital Services Act.  The findings reveal significant gaps: several official EU languages have no reported human moderators on some platforms, and widely spoken global languages such as Arabic and Spanish receive proportionally fewer moderators relative to English.  The research highlights the implications of these disparities for online safety, freedom of expression, and the wellbeing of moderation workers. 

His presentation, “Language Disparities in Moderation Workforce Allocation by Social Media Platforms,” is part of the Workers and Data Work session on Saturday, 27 June, which runs from 10:45am to 12:15pm.  His presentation takes place from 10:45am to 10:57am.

Juliette Zaccour 

DPhil student  Juliette Zaccour is co-organising a CRAFT session at FAccT 2026, bringing together themes of feminist resistance, indigenous craft traditions, and computing justice.  

The session, Stitch’n’Bitch: Collective reflections on ageism, feminism, and creative resistance through hands-on cable weaving, invites participants to weave a collective artwork from outdated cables while exploring how traditionally feminine and indigenous crafts have functioned as symbols of cultural and political resistance.  Local artists will guide the hands-on activity alongside presentations and discussions on the under-representation of older adults, women, artists, and indigenous communities in computing technology. The session is co-organised with OII colleagues Sofia Hafner, Alex Edmonds, and Luc Rocher, and takes place on 25 June from 1:45 to 4:00pm. 

The diverse research presented by OII researchers at FAccT 2026 highlights the Institute’s leadership in the sector and its important contributions to critical conversations around AI. To learn more about the OII’s research projects in AI and other related areas, contact press@oii.ox.ac.uk.