1pm ET

There's strong evidence that setting clear community norms and rules results in healthier interactions - and even more engagement. But does it matter what rules online communities use? Do some rules result in more prosocial outcomes than others - and more vibrant communities?

​To our knowledge, we don't have answers to all those questions - yet, but Galen Weld's extensive research examining Reddit users values, the rules used across Reddit's thousands of communities and how those rules connect to perceptions of governance begin to draw a picture of the kinds of rules that lead to thriving engagement. We hope you can join this conversation with Galen to explore the landscape of community rules and uncover how - and which - rules matter.

​About Pro-Socials: Pro-Socials are informal meet-ups, where technologists and researchers can learn from - and inspire - each other around understanding and integrating prosocial design. Each Pro-Social includes a motivating question, conversation with experts and break-out convos where you can meet like-minded technologists (designers, product managers, entrepreneurs and trust & safety professionals) and researchers to share insights and begin to co-create new knowledge together.

​In partnership with the Council on Technology and Social Cohesion.

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1pm ET
Social media algorithms are, with exceptions, designed to engage. Critics contend that comes at a cost to civic society by amplifying content that stirs outrage and toxic division. But can ranking algorithms be designed instead to foster discourse and pluralism? And does doing so have to come at the expense of engagement?

​​Kylan Rutherford is a researcher on the Prosocial Ranking Challenge, a project that has been working to answer those questions by conducting a large-scale field experiment across Facebook, X and Reddit. By recruiting participants who install browser extensions that can reorder their social media feeds, the team was able to examine how well different prosocial rankers – submitted by outside researchers – reduced animosity between political groups. During this session, we'll hear what they learned, and Kylan will also discuss the promise and challenges of conducting browser extension studies as a way to test the effectiveness of prosocial design interventions.  

​​PDN Prosocial Design Research Workshops are an informal meeting space where we will gather for a one-hour, interactive online session to learn more about new work in this area. Each workshop session begins with a presentation, followed by a Q&A that also encourages constructive feedback. We’ll end with breakout groups to dig deeper and build connections around our session’s topic.