Digital Wellbeing, Fairness and Vulnerability

  • Panel
  • Café
  • Friday 22.05 — 11:50 - 13:05

Organising Institution

eLaw Leiden University / RESOCIAL Project

Netherlands

RESOCIAL Project seeks to identify, measure, and mitigate human vulnerabilities to enhance the resilience of vulnerable users on social media platforms. The project is funded under the Synergy Theme: Vulnerability and resilience in an online society (grant number NWA.1540.21.001).
  • Academic 3
  • Business 1
  • Policy 2
The European Union is debating rules on minors’ protection, manipulative design, and platform responsibility. This panel connects three perspectives: wellbeing, fairness, and vulnerability to ask what enforceable standards and minimum duties could look like under the Digital Services Act, the Digital Fairness Act, and the AI Act, and what evidence would make them auditable. The panel will discuss addictive interface patterns (autoplay, infinite scroll, loot-box mechanics), building on the European Parliament’s work on protection of minors online, age assurance, and accountability for recommender systems. It will then connect these debates to fairness research on algorithmic decision-making and to data protection’s concept of vulnerability. The goal is to identify metrics, audit evidence, and remedies that regulators and platforms can apply while safeguarding autonomy, dignity, and fundamental rights, and to test whether these measures reduce harm.

Questions to be answered

  1. How can we conceptualise digital wellbeing in the EU law, at the intersection of existing tools (Consumer protection acquis, GDPR, AI Act and Digital Services Act) and to inform future law-making, especially the Digital Fairness Act?
  2. How can we operationalise vulnerability-sensitive design for online platforms?
  3. Can legal “simplification” efforts coexist with higher protections for human vulnerabilities in the online ecosystem?
  4. If prohibiting social media to minors is not “the” solution, what might/should we do?

Moderator

Gianclaudio Malgieri

Leiden University - Netherlands

Dr. Gianclaudio Malgieri is an Associate Professor of Law & Technology and a Board Member at eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies. He serves as the Honorary Director of the Brussels Privacy Hub, Free University of Brussels (VUB), and as the Managing Editor of Computer Law and Security Review, an External Ethics Expert of the European Commission. He leads the RESOCIAL Project and will lead VaROS (Vulnerability and Resilience in an Online Society), two interdisciplinary projects on social media vulnerability and resilience funded by the Dutch Research Agenda . His field of research and teaching is digital rights, digital vulnerability, digital wellbeing, data protection law, privacy, AI regulation, AI explainability rights, and consumer protection in the digital market. Gianclaudio has authored more than 100 publications, including the book "Vulnerability and Data Protection Law" (Oxford University Press, 2023) and articles in leading international academic journals, and he is the Co-Rapporteur for the American Law Institute - European Law Institute Principles on Biometrics. His works have been cited by, inter alia, top international newspapers (The New York Times, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, Politico, La Tribune, France Culture, ilSole24Ore, la Repubblica, il Corriere della Sera, Euractiv, the EU Observer) but also institutions, e.g. the European Commission and the Council of Europe, and the Advocate General of the EU Court of Justice.

Speaker

Nina Baranowska

eLaw Leiden University / RESOCIAL Project - Netherlands

Dr. Nina Baranowska, LL.M. (Ottawa) (she/her) is a researcher at eLaw, Leiden University, and a member of the RESOCIAL Project (funded by NWO), an interdisciplinary project on social media vulnerability and resilience. Her research focuses on the legal and societal challenges of AI and other digital technologies, with particular attention to platform regulation, data protection, liability, non-discrimination and fundamental rights. Her work engages with the intersections of EU law, technological aspects, and regulatory approaches. Nina completed her PhD (summa cum laude) in European Union law and private law, as well as an LL.M. in Law & Technology from the University of Ottawa (Canada). Before joining eLaw, Nina worked as a researcher at iHub: the Interdisciplinary Research Hub on Digitalization and Society at Radboud University. She was part of the Horizon Europe project FINDHR (Fairness and Intersectional Non-Discrimination in Human Recommendation), where she conducted legal research on detecting and preventing discriminatory risks in algorithmic hiring. Her work examined the interaction between EU law (including the AI Act, GDPR, and EU non-discrimination law) and technical fairness approaches.

Speaker

Helen Vossen

Utrecht University - Netherlands

Dr. Helen Vossen is Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Child and Family Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She has been researching the influence of digital media on the development of youth for more than 16 years. Her research focusses on the impact of social media use on mental wellbeing and visa versa. In addition, she investigates what parents can do to prevent problematic social media use an how they can stimulate healthy screen use. In 2025 she co-authored the Guideline for Healthy Screen use, commissioned by the ministry of Health (https://gezondschermgebruik.nl/en).

Speaker

Alexandra Geese

European Parliament (Member of the European Parliament) - Belgium

Alexandra Geese is the digital expert of the Greens/EFA group, a co-founder of the Eurostack initiative and a leading advocate for digital sovereignty in Europe. She has served as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. As a key negotiator of the Digital Services Act, she has shaped legislation that strengthens Europe’s ability to set its own rules for digital platforms and online spaces. She leads Politico’s 2026 ‘10 to Watch’ list, recognising her growing influence on EU digital policy.

Speaker

Christos Floros

Monnett

Christos Floros is the founder of Monnett, a social network built on the idea that technology should actually serve the people using it. Christos blends entrepreneurship with a genuine commitment to democracy and civic leadership, ditching Big Tech’s algorithms in favor of pro-social tools. He’s proving that you can build a successful, high-growth ecosystem in Europe with a commitment to a better society along the way.