This was the third of Brunel Public Policy’s webinar series on “Are Regulators Keeping up with the Science?”, taking place on Monday 13th January 2025.
Nelli Ferenczi explored how young people make sense of mundane online extremism and harm, with findings from a project which investigated radicalisation and polarisation across 16 countries. She found that many young people manage extreme content and online harm by removing themselves from certain online spaces. Young people in her studies propose to combat online harms through improved moderation and education.
Billur Aslan Ozgul presented an analysis of Covid-19 anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protesters’ engagement with news, data and online information and misinformation about the pandemic. She showed that those who did not trust mainstream media would try to find their own alternative information, but this was often from a limited group of online influencers who are largely discredited by the medical community. She suggested some of this distrust may be addressed through better attempts from information disseminators to understand the communities they are trying to reach.
Zoi Krokida presented findings and recommendations of a study on ‘Social Media-Facilitated Trafficking of Children and Young People’. She suggested that the online safety bill and training of the relevant professionals needs to be underpinned by a better understanding of how social media is used in trafficking, and that evidence-based early-identification mechanisms for prevention and early detection of children at risk of exploitation should be developed.
Within the discussion, issues around trust, online silos, education in online harms and bias in methods that should safeguard or regulate against these harms were explored.
See the full event recording here
Welcome and Closing Remarks from Dr Rosanna Smith, Manager of Brunel Public Policy and webinar series convenor.
- Chaired by Prof Ashley Braganza, Chair of Business transformation, co-Director Centre for AI: Social and Digital Innovation, Brunel University of London
- Dr Nelli Ferenczi is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Brunel University of London
- Dr Billur Aslan Ozgul is a Senior lecturer in Political Communication at Brunel University of London
- Dr Zoi Krokida is a Lecturer in AI, Innovation and Law at Brunel University London