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Call for Papers

WebSciX 2026 · Bengaluru, India · November 26–28, 2026

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Invitation to Submit

WebSciX 2026 invites researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to submit their original work for its inaugural conference, poised as a regional satellite event of the global ACM WebSci conference.

WebSciX 2026 is dedicated to advancing the interdisciplinary study of the Internet, World Wide Web (WWW), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their impact on human lives in the Asia-Pacific region. The conference aims to build an accessible and engaged interdisciplinary community of experts to investigate the socio-technical dynamics of digital ecosystems within the unique cultural, economic, and technological contexts of the Asia-Pac regions.

As we celebrate two decades of Web Science, the digital landscape is undergoing a seismic shift. The Web is no longer merely a repository of information or a passive medium for interactions; it has become a substrate for autonomous entities and human-machine entanglements. The rise of Agentic AI — systems capable of reasoning, planning, and executing multi-step goals with minimal human oversight — presents profound challenges and opportunities for humanity.

WebSciX 2026 invites interdisciplinary contributions that explore how autonomous agents, AI and the Internet are reconfiguring economy, culture and society, affecting everything from individual agency and emotional well-being to global data governance and the future of work.

The broader objective of this event is to connect a community of scholars across the disciplines of computer science, communication studies, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, political science, policy design and literary studies, to explicitly and critically analyze the relationship between technology and society in the region, and how it shapes global developments.

We encourage submissions that investigate sociotechnical transitions driven by agent-populated webs and the ethical, legal and epistemological frameworks required to ensure these technological systems serve the public good. Rather than approaching emergent technological advancements as a definitive rupture, we invite submissions that are attentive to contexts, histories and continuities, and that regard insights gained from interdisciplinary explorations as the ground for reimagining technological futures.

Important Dates

Key Deadlines
Paper Submission Deadline16 August 2026
Notification of Acceptance20 September 2026
Camera-Ready Submission30 September 2026
Conference26–28 Nov 2026

Topics of Interest

Mainstream technical research topics include, but are not limited to, the following tracks

Web Architecture & Decentralization

  • Web3 & Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) — self-sovereign identity and the shift from centralized logins to wallet-based Web3 authentication
  • Interoperability Standards — cross-platform data portability (e.g. Solid pods, ActivityPub)
  • Sustainable Web Engineering — carbon footprint of web-scale AI inference and blockchain transactions

Network Science & Graph Theory

  • Hypergraphs & Higher-Order Networks — modelling complex group interactions beyond pairwise links
  • Dynamic Network Evolution — predicting tipping points in online community growth or collapse
  • Friendship Paradox in AI Simulations — agent-based modelling of synthetic social network properties

Information Retrieval & Content Analysis

  • Conversational Search — from keyword indexing to "answer engines" and their impact on web traffic
  • Multimodal Web Mining — text, video (TikTok/Reels) and audio for cross-platform trend detection
  • Temporal Web Archiving — preserving the "live" and ephemeral web for future study

Algorithmic Bias & Auditing

  • Audit-as-a-Service — automated tools testing black-box algorithms for gender, racial, or geographic bias
  • Polarization & Echo Chambers — quantifying filter-bubble effects in recommender systems
  • Digital Forensics — identifying coordinated inauthentic behaviour and state-sponsored influence operations

Collective Intelligence & Crowdsourcing

  • Hybrid Intelligence — workflows where humans and LLMs collaborate on labeling or fact-checking
  • The Creator Economy — platform algorithms' impact on creators' financial viability and mental health
  • Online Education & Remote Learning — long-term impact of web-mediated pedagogy on social mobility

Autonomous Agency & Governance

  • Agentic Accountability — legal and ethical frameworks for attributing responsibility to AI agents
  • Trust Architectures for DPI — Digital Public Infrastructure resilient to agent-driven interactions
  • Bot-to-Bot Economics — the shift toward high-frequency, agent-led transactions on the web

Cognitive & Social Implications

  • The Attention Economy 2.0 — agentic "algorithmic grooming" and its impact on cognitive load and focus
  • AI-Native Societies — psychological impact of growing up alongside AI as conversational peers
  • Synthesized Culture — the role of agents in preserving or eroding regional worldviews and languages

Public Good & Policy Design

  • Agentic Policy Simulation — using autonomous agents to model large-scale social interventions
  • Inclusive Automation — ensuring agentic systems don't reinforce existing digital divides
  • Verification & Truth — combating agent-generated misinformation, preserving the "Human Web"
  • AI Regulation & Compliance — comparative studies of the EU AI Act, India's AI directives, global safety summits
  • Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) — Privacy by Design, consent management, right to erasure in the age of LLMs
  • Algorithmic Ethics — auditing bias in autonomous agents, transparency in black-box decisions
  • Sovereign Data Frameworks — national and community-led data ownership in the Global South

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)

  • Interoperability & Data Exchange — the X-Road model, Beckn protocols, and the Unified Health Interface (UHI)
  • Financial Inclusion & Payments — scalability and security of real-time payments like UPI, and informal economies
  • Open Networks for Commerce — decoupling discovery and fulfilment via open protocols (e.g. ONDC)
  • Digital Public Goods (DPGs) — sustainability models for open-source civic architecture
  • Regulation, Ethics, and Data Protection

Innovation, Infrastructure & Economy

  • Regional directions in AI model development and application layers
  • Open source web and open weight models
  • Platformization of the web and platform monopolies
  • Digital money and digital payment systems
  • Agent-led economic transactions on the web
  • Outsourcing and the global digital marketplace
  • Smart city and AI infrastructure

Work, Knowledge & Labour

  • Automation, deskilling and loss of jobs
  • Precarity and gig work
  • Labour organizing
  • Reskilling and technology training
  • AI and the education sector

Political & Popular Cultures

  • AI slop and reel cultures
  • Online influencers and creator cultures
  • Extreme speech, fakes, misinformation
  • Gender-based harassment
  • Digital influence operations and polarization
  • Social movements and mobilization; Gen-Z activism
  • AI companions, digital leisure, romance
  • Addiction, dependency and digital well-being
  • AI scams and frauds

Ethics & Epistemology

  • Regional frameworks for ethical AI
  • Small-scale models and linguistic diversity
  • Community-centric values and human oversight
  • Climate and sustainability — mitigating carbon footprints of web-scale AI inference and blockchain
  • Digital archiving, memory and right to be forgotten
  • Epistemological challenges of interdisciplinary web and AI research
  • Novel interdisciplinary methodologies for web and AI research

Regulation & Governance

  • Social media platform regulation
  • AI and digital sovereignty, sovereign data frameworks
  • Regional policies on AI acceleration
  • Safety, privacy and data protection
  • Algorithmic bias and auditing
  • Accountability for AI agents
  • Digital public infrastructure

Submission Guidelines

Paper Types

Papers of the following types are invited for WebSciX 2026:

Full Papers (6–10 pages including references): Reporting on mature, original research.

Short Papers & Posters (3–5 pages including references): For emerging ideas and ongoing projects.

Full papers, short papers, and posters all undergo peer review. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings. At least one author of each accepted paper or poster must register for the conference and present in physical mode.

Formatting

Formatting of the paper is through the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) template. LaTeX and Word templates are available on the Springer website. Springer LNCS Template ↗

Submission Portal

Paper submission is through the OpenReview portal. You need to create a login on OpenReview if you do not have one already — preferably using your organisational email ID. OpenReview Portal ↗

Review Process

The submission is double-blind — at the time of submission, author names must be removed from the paper and it must be submitted as Anonymous authors.

Submit Your Paper

Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings.

  • Full Papers: 6–10 pp (incl. references)
  • Short Papers & Posters: 3–5 pp (incl. references)
Submit via OpenReview →

Academic Integrity

WebSciX 2026 is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity. All submissions must represent original work and adhere to ethical research practices.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, in any form, is strictly prohibited. This includes the unattributed use of others' words, ideas, data, or figures. All sources must be properly cited. Any submission found to be plagiarized will be rejected and may be subject to further disciplinary action.

AI-Generated Content

While we acknowledge the evolving landscape of AI in research, submissions primarily authored by generative AI models are not acceptable. Authors are encouraged to use AI tools responsibly as assistants in their research and writing process. However, the core intellectual contribution, analysis, and articulation must be that of the human author(s). If AI tools have been used significantly in the preparation of a manuscript, authors are required to disclose this in their submission, detailing the tools used and the extent of their application, including the main prompts used. The final responsibility for the content, accuracy, and originality of the work rests with the human authors.