Workshop on Online Misinformation- and Harm-Aware Recommender Systems

Recommender systems play an important role in the dissemination and propagation of information. This is particularly true for large scale platforms such as social media, where recommender systems assist users in facilitating access to massive user-generated content by finding relevant information and establishing new social relationships. Just as recommendation techniques are designed to become powerful tools, they could in turn spread online harm. Some of these issues stem from the core concepts and assumptions of recommender systems. Harnessing recommender systems with misinformation- and harm-awareness mechanisms becomes essential not only to mitigate the negative effects of the propagation of harmful content, but also to increase the quality and diversity of recommender systems. To further research in this direction, the Workshop on Online Misinformation- and Harm-Aware Recommender Systems (OHARS 2020) aimed at fostering research in recommender systems that can circumvent the negative effects of online harms by promoting the recommendation of safe content and users.