Social media platforms are playing a vital role in our daily lives. However, while we are catching up on the news or sharing our personal accomplishments on a social media platform, the social media company is harvesting our personal data to maximize our engagement with its platform through personalized content. They also exploit our personal data to steer us into the interest of their customers by political or commercial microtargeting advertisements. Moreover, the underlying algorithm of social media platforms enables malicious actors to target their vulnerable audience with personalized disinformation.
This project tries to explore how personalized content (disinformation) and microtargeting advertisements on social media amount to manipulation and how international and European human rights law respond to that. The project continues to answer whether social media users’ consent would justify them being exposed to manipulative contents, and whether there is (or should be) a right to access non-manipulative social media.
Contact:
Rasam Zamanifarahani, Ph.D. student (rzam@sam.sdu.dk)