I am a legal scholar studying the regulation of online platforms. Within this broad field, I pursue three lines of research. First, I examine platforms' obligations to combat disinformation and how their regulation fits within the wider EU legal framework. Second, I study messaging apps and how platform rules apply (or should apply) to private and public chat groups and channels. These spaces are not traditional online platforms, yet they have evolved to include features that closely resemble social media platforms. Third, I investigate age limits for social media and how ‘social media’ should be defined for that purpose. Across these research lines, I engage with instruments including the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising (TTPA), the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the right to freedom of expression.
I work as an Assistant Professor in Law & Technology at the VU. I previously obtained my research master's in Information Law (University of Amsterdam, 2016) and wrote a dissertation on the fundamental rights implications of personalised communication by news media (University of Amsterdam, 2021). My doctoral research was part of the ERC Starting Grant project ‘Profiling and Targeting News Readers: Implications for the Democratic Role of the Digital Media, User Rights and Public Information Policy,’ led by Prof. Dr. Natali Helberger.
Next to my research, I coordinate the master's specialisation in International Technology Law. I also coordinate and teach a master's course on European privacy and data protection law and teach platform regulation and media law in a separate course. Finally, I coordinate the internships and master’s theses for students in the International Technology Law specialisation.