What are the Harms of Digital Harms?

Public Lecture by Rob Cover, Professor of Digital Communication and Director of the RMIT Digital Ethnography Research Centre
18 June 2026,  5pm -6:30pm | Social Sciences Lecture Theatre (G.130) UWA

Digital harms such as online abuse, harassment, doxxing, disinformation and AI-generated deepfakes have increased substantially over the past decade, with more than 70% of Australian adults encountering harmful content or behaviour. Although many governments around the world are regulating platforms to be more responsive to harmful digital content, regulation is failing, misogyny and racist hate continue to circulate, and the digital experience is becoming ever-more toxic, with serious impact on psychological, emotional and social wellbeing. In this talk, Rob will showcase his recent research on digital harms remedies, how everyday Australians are navigating toxic digital media and some of the solutions needed to detoxify digital culture. He will discuss the role of penalties for perpetrators, better platform compliance models, how to educate everyday users to be better digital citizens and the potential for international agencies to guide harm reduction. Our social future now relies on grassroots, multi-sector “war on lies and hate”. 
  This talk is supported By The UWA School of Social Sciences and The Frontier Technology and Society Research Lab

The preservation of Indigenous heritage remains a significant challenge within a period increasingly characterised by national and international fragmentation, economic insecurities, and irreversible environmental degradation. The work to protect Indigenous heritage is also made more difficult by legislative and political environments that continue to favour economic development and extractive resource exploitation. In this respect, events, approaches, and engagements in Australia are reflections of wider and interrelated structures and processes that continue in myriad ways across the Global South and beyond.  This one-day symposium will bring together national and international experts and practitioners and Aboriginal Traditional Owners to exchange their views and experiences, to discuss case studies, and strategies for reconciliation and remediation, and how positive outcomes can be achieved for all involved parties in a rapidly changing world. For this occasion, we have the privilege to be able to engage with Mélanie Duval and Marie Forget from Savoie Mont Blanc University, France, who are visiting UWA and who have extensive experience in working on the above issues in Europe, Africa and South America.

25 June 2026, 8.30am-5pm, Woolnough Lecture Theatre, Geology, UWA

PROGRAM: Symposium Extractive industries and the protection and preservation of Indigenous heritage