AI Vulnerability and Dependency on Social Media

  • Panel
  • Maritime
  • Friday 23.05 — 11:50 - 13:05

Organising Institution

RESOCIAL Project (Leiden University) & VULNERA (Brussels Privacy Hub)

Netherlands

Funded by NWA Synergy Theme: Vulnerability and resilience in an online society, the RESOCIAL project seeks to understand and find ways to mitigate human vulnerabilities on social media platforms, thereby fostering the resilience of their users. Our partners include: Leiden University, University of Twente, TU Delft, InHolland University of Applied Sciences, Offlimits, ALLAI, Future of Privacy Forum (Dutch Branch), Autoriteit Consument & Markt, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, SIDN Fonds, UNICEF Nederland, BEUC, Equality Now, AUDRi, and VULNERA.
  • Academic 2
  • Business 1
  • Policy 3
Social media platforms are increasingly becoming spaces of structural dependency and digital addiction, amplifying human vulnerabilities. These dynamics raise pressing questions about the adequacy of current legal and social tools to protect individuals in an age of pervasive connectivity and AI-driven ecosystems. This panel will critically explore the challenges and opportunities in addressing human vulnerability online. Bringing together legal scholars, policymakers (the AI Office and national DSA enforcement authorities), and social scientists, this panel promotes a multidisciplinary dialogue to evaluate the effectiveness of the current regulatory landscape and propose pathways towards a more empathetic and rights-centred digital ecosystem. This session will provide insights for academics, practitioners, and regulators interested in the intersection of technology, human rights, and vulnerability. Join us for an in-depth exploration of the challenges and the way forward in safeguarding dignity and fairness in the digital age.

Questions to be answered

  1. Do we have enough legal and social tool to assess human vulnerability on social media, especially considering new forms of structural dependency and digital addictions?
  2. How is human dependency on social media reshaping GDPR consent freedom, especially considering pay-or-consent debates?
  3. How is the AI Act addressing the different nuances of human vulnerabilities enhanced by AI systems on social media?
  4. Are the EU Digital Fairness Act and the DSA risk assessment enough to assess new forms of online vulnerability?

Moderator

Gianclaudio Malgieri

Leiden University & Brussels Privacy Hub - Belgium

Gianclaudio Malgieri is an Associate Professor of Law & Technology at Leiden University (the Netherlands), where he conducts research at the eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies. He serves as a Board Member of the eLaw center and the Co-Director of the Brussels Privacy Hub, as a Managing Editor of Computer Law and Security Review, and he coordinates “VULNERA“, the International Observatory of Vulnerability in Data Protection. He is also an affiliated researcher at the LSTS centre of VUB and at the Augmented Law Institute of the EDHEC Business School (Lille, France), an External Ethics Expert of the European Commission and an Advisory Board member of EPIC.org and CAIDP. He conducts research on and teaches Data Protection Law, Privacy, AI regulation, Fundamental Rights, Digital Platform regulations and Consumer protection. He is the Project Leader of RESOCIAL, a research project funded by the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA-NWO) on Vulnerability and Resilience on Social Media, involving a consortium of 4 Universities and 11 cooperation partners. Gianclaudio has authored more than 60 publications, including articles in leading international academic journals and a monograph, “Vulnerability and Data Protection Law” (Oxford University Press, 2023). His works have been cited by, inter alia, top international newspapers (The New York Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, Politico, La Tribune, France Culture, ilSole24Ore, la Repubblica, il Corriere della Sera, Euractiv) but also institutions, e.g. the European Commission and the Council of Europe, the World Economic Forum, the Canadian Government, and the Canadian Data Protection Authority. In 2024, he won the “Policy Leader in AI Award” delivered by CAIPD.Europe at the opening night of the CPDP Conference. In 2023, he received the 35under35 award for digital policy leadership from CIDOB and Banco Santander and in 2020, he was the only EU scholar to receive the FPF Privacy for Policymaker Paper Award. He published in English, Italian and French and some works were translated even into Chinese.

Speaker

Kim van Sparrentak

European Parliament - Europe

Kim van Sparrentak is a Member of the European Parliament on behalf of the Groenlinks-PvdA delegation in the Greens/EFA. She is Co-Chair of the LGBTIQ+ Intergroup, a member of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, as well as a substitute in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. Kim’s focus is on the human element of digitalisation, as well as digital sovereignty. She was negotiator for the Greens group on the AI Act, the Platform Work Directive and Parliament's lead negotiator on the Short-Term Rental Regulation and the own-initiative report on Addictive Design.

Speaker

Damian Clifford

ANU university - Australia

I am a Senior Lecturer in Law at the Australian National University. Previously a FWO Aspirant Fellow at KU Leuven's Centre for IT and IP Law (CiTiP), my research focuses on privacy, data protection and technology regulation, and I have published across these fields. My books Data and Private Law (edited with Jeannie Marie Paterson and Kwan Ho Lau) and Data Protection Law and Emotion were published in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Speaker

Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal

EDRi - Belgium

Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal, PhD, is a policy advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi) and an expert in data protection and privacy, with a focus on commercial surveillance and the multidimensional virtual harms caused by online tracking. She also specialises in online freedom of expression, examining the role of security forces in content governance.

Speaker

Adele Zeynep Walton

Logging Off Club - United Kingdom

Adele Zeynep Walton is a British Turkish journalist, online safety campaigner and the author of Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World. Adele has channelled a personal loss into advocating for a safer digital world for young people. She is a campaigner with Bereaved Families for Online Safety, youth ambassador for People Vs Big Tech, and a founding member of the EU youth movement Ctrl + Alt + Reclaim. She is the founder of Logging Off Club, a community which brings people together offline at phone free events to reconnect with themselves and others across the UK. As a Gen Z who grew up on social media, Adele regularly speaks about digital wellbeing, social connection and rebuilding empathy in a polarised world. Adele has written for The Guardian, The Independent, the i, Dazed, i-D, VICE, Metro, Refinery 29, The Big Issue, Jacobin, Open Democracy, gal-dem, Computer Weekly and more. Her articles have been translated into Brazilian Portuguese, German, Italian, Swedish, Turkish and Spanish, and she has been interviewed on Times Radio, LBC Radio, Sky News, BBC Radio Scotland and Channel 4 News and more. Between 2023-2024 Adele was DAZED's first ever political book columnist, where she has interviewed authors including Naomi Klein, Emma Dabiri, Vicky Spratt and more.

Speaker

Constanta Rosca

Leiden University - Netherlands

Constanța Roșca, PhD, is an expert in consumer protection in digital markets. Constanța researches technical and policy solutions for harmful user interface design practices. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher working on the RESOCIAL project at Leiden University. RESOCIAL aims to generate insights into how users perceive and are affected by social media platform design, as well as how user vulnerability could be mitigated through policy and platform design.