PhD candidate on Law and Vulnerability in Social Media 0,8 - 1,0 fte

Leiden Law School, Center for Law and Digital Technologies (eLaw) is looking for a 
 

PhD candidate on Law and Human Vulnerability in Social Media 0,8 - 1,0 fte
Vacancy number 14542

 

eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, is looking for a PhD researcher with expertise in law and technology with an interest in digital vulnerability and platform regulation.

 

RESOCIAL (“User vulnerabilities and Resilience on SOCIAL media platforms and the metaverse: a sociolegal and design perspective”, an NWO-NWA Synergy Grant Project) seeks to identify, measure, and thereby mitigate human vulnerabilities on social media platforms (including the metaverse and immersive technologies), thereby fostering the resilience of their users. People increasingly live their social life online and experience new and/or amplified risks to their fundamental rights (e.g., manipulation, online violence, discrimination, stigmatisation). This is due to the asymmetry of power with the private sector governing online social media platforms and the underrepresentation of vulnerable users in key decision-making at the business level. This issue is amplified by the lack of scientific methods to measure risks to fundamental rights online, the inadequacy of the national and EU legislation to enhance the resilience of users, and the ineffective protection of vulnerable users online. This project will contribute to solving these issues through an interdisciplinary, participative, multi-stakeholder approach. Starting from four use cases of vulnerability (children, vulnerable consumers, vulnerable data subjects, victims of gender-based violence) and through many disciplinary lenses (children’s rights, consumer protection law, data protection law, gender studies, human rights and computer science), this project aims to measure human vulnerabilities on social media and to propose three clear and effective solutions to enhance the resilience of vulnerable groups online, namely: a legal solution (government guidelines for a vulnerability-aware implementation of the legislation on social media); a design solution (“vulnerability-sensitive design”); and a business-oriented solutions (vulnerability-aware codes of conduct for social media and the metaverse).

 

The research objectives of RESOCIAL are:
RO1: Propose and validate a clear framework to measure risks and human vulnerabilities on social media platforms.
RO2: Analyse the gaps in the existing and proposed legislation on digital platform and formulate action perspectives for the Dutch Government, including Guidelines on platform regulation.
RO3: Propose and validate best practices that can lead to a Code of Conduct for Vulnerability on Social Media model

 

Tasks 
As a PhD researcher at eLaw, you will advance the knowledge of human vulnerability in social media regulation, at the interplay of data protection, consumer protection, children’s rights and fundamental rights. In concrete, you will help a PostDoc in the project (based at the Leiden Law School) to conduct the interviews planned with different stakeholders and analyze gray information, help structure legal guidelines for the Dutch Government in RO2 and cooperate on RO1 and RO3 with two other postdocs, one specialized in Human-Computer Interactions an Twente University (working on RO3) and another specialized in human rights and technology policy at Delft University and inHolland University of Applied Science (working on RO1). 

 

In particular, we are interested in understanding how we can implement and improve the existing EU legislation (DSA, AIA, GDPR, DMA and Consumer protection acquis) regarding the protection of fundamental rights of vulnerable users on social media, how to assess the impact on fundamental rights and how to create participatory best practices for industries and institutions. 

 

Within this narrative, you will contribute to several ongoing activities, projects, and initiatives in our group at Leiden University, including:
Contribute to the 2-year project RESOCIAL (“User vulnerabilities and Resilience on SOCIAL media platforms and the metaverse: a sociolegal and design perspective”, funded by the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA); Contribute to and be partly responsible for the Working group on Vulnerability (https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/law/institute-for-the-interdisciplinary-study-of-the-law/elaw/research/working-groups-at-elaw#working-group-on-vulnerability) at eLaw to create a community at Leiden University on the topic of law and digital vulnerability; Give guest lectures and support the coordination in courses on Fundamental Rights and Digital Technologies, Privacy and Data Protection and