AI Futures Lab consortium partner in new project User vulnerabilities and Resilience on SOCIAL media platforms and the metaverse (RESOCIAL)
The AI Futures Lab has received additional funds from the Nationale Wetenschapsagenda (NWA) programme as partner in the project User vulnerabilities and Resilience on SOCIAL media platforms and the metaverse (RESOCIAL) on ‘vulnerability and resilience in an online society’. The RESOCIAL project, led by Dr. Gianclaudio Malgieri (Leiden University), addresses online vulnerabilities and resilience on social media platforms and the metaverse by evaluating risks, legal gaps, and proposing solutions through interdisciplinary collaboration. This project is one of four consortia which will soon begin work as part of the NWA programme Vulnerability and resilience in an online society aimed at developing greater knowledge regarding the long-term effects of online societies. This knowledge will enable government departments and authorities to develop appropriate policies. The aim of this thematic programme of the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) is to develop knowledge for policies that help government departments and authorities deal appropriately with the long-term effects of digitisation of society.
B. (Ben) Wagner
How can the legislators, in cooperation with civil society and companies, address human vulnerabilities and enhance resilience on social media? People increasingly live their social life online, with higher risks of manipulation, online violence, and discrimination. Main causes of this are a lack of scientific methods to measure risks to fundamental rights online, the inadequacy of the Dutch and EU laws to enhance users' resilience, and the ineffective protection of vulnerable users. Through three complementary interdisciplinary pillars, RESOCIAL aims to assess vulnerabilities in social media platforms (incl. the metaverse and immersive technologies), analyse the gaps in existing hard- and soft- law, and – through co-design workshops- develop a legal solution (government guidelines for a vulnerability-aware implementation of the laws on social media), a design solution (“vulnerability-sensitive design”) and a business solution (vulnerability-aware codes of conduct for platforms).
Partners: ALLAI Nederland, lliance for Digital Rights (AUDRI), Authority for Consumers and Markets, BEUC, Dutch DPA (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, Equality Now, "Future of Privacy Forum (Dutch branch)", Inholland University of Applied Sciences, International Observatory on Vulnerable People in Data Protection (VULNERA), Leiden University, Offlimits, SIDN Fonds, TU Delft, UNICEF Letter and University of Twente.
NWA program Vulnerability and resilience in an online society.
This grant falls under the NWA program Vulnerability and Resilience in an Online Society. A total of four research projects in consortia are participating in this program.
For more information about this project and experts behind the consortium partners, also read the post on the Leiden University website and Inholland University of Applied Sciences.