Safer Digital Futures

How can citizens help shape safer online environments in an age of AI? AI increasingly determines what we see online, moderates content, recommends information and generates new forms of digital media. These developments create both opportunities and new forms of harm.

This challenge explores how citizens can play a meaningful role in designing, governing and evaluating AI systems that shape digital life.

Indicative potential partners

• CyberNorth CIC
• Digital Safety CIC
• National Cyber Security Centre
• Ofcom
• Yoti

Illustrative research directions

• Online safety by design
• AI-enabled content moderation
• Misinformation and synthetic media
• Children’s online experiences
• Trustworthy recommender systems
• AI companions and social agents
• Digital regulation and governance
• Participatory approaches to online safety

Indicative reading

• Who Gets to Define Safety? A Systematic Review of How Generative AI Research Addresses Youth Online Safety

  O. Collins Oguine, A. Alvarado Garcia, M. Muller, K. Badillo-Urquiola

  2026. In Proc of the 2026 CHI Conf on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026). doi:10.1145/3772318.3791346

• Scaffolding Online Safety in Older Communities: Exploring the Relationship Between Digital Literacy and Cybersecurity

  J. Holt, J. Nicholson

  2026. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 33(3), 1-56. doi:10.1145/3796705

• A critical review of the Online Safety Bill

  M. Trengove, E. Kazim, D. Almeida, A. Hilliard, S. Zannone, E. Lomas

  2022. Patterns, 3(8). doi:10.1016/j.patter.2022.100544

• Don’t you know that you’re toxic: Normalization of toxicity in online gaming

  N. A. Beres, J. Frommel, E. Reid, R. L. Mandryk, M. Klarkowski

  May 2021. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-15). doi:10.1145/3411764.3445157

• The role of self-regulation and need satisfaction and frustration for predicting toxic behaviour in League of Legends

  J. Frommel, R. L. Mandryk, D. Johnson

  2026. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 101207. doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2026.101207

• Porn and the OSA: what about the children?

  J. Petley

  2025. Porn Studies, 12(3), pp.362-386. doi:10.1080/23268743.2025.2476961

If you are applying to join the CCAI programme, and have difficulty accessing any of the papers above, please contact us.