Vacancy: Postdoc Information Law at AI, Media & Democracy Lab

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with a profile in information law to do research into the legal and ethical aspects of synthetic data and use of synthetic data for policy simulations. Your research will be part of “WHAT-IF”, a European Horizon research project. “WHAT-IF” is an international, interdisciplinary consortium with the goal of creating a ‘digital twin’ of the (social) media environment, in order to test possible interventions at the individual and/or societal level. The empirical core of the project is formed by a combination of individual level data donation of (social) media usage, which will be used to train and validate a LLM-based simulation. Then, this will be used to develop and test possible interventions to problems like tackling the spread of mis- and disinformation, deepfakes or hate speech. Using synthetic data in policy simulations raises, among others, a host of important legal and ethical questions.

To help addressing these legal and ethical questions, we are looking for a postdoc with several years of experience in doing interdisciplinary research in information law, and more specifically media law, platform governance, the legal aspects of disinformation, political targeting and synthetic data. Your role will be to help manage and conduct research within the legal work package, in close cooperation with the other work packages. More specifically, the objective of the legal work package is to develop a theoretical framework on the role evidence produced through simulations can play in platform and media governance, and to define the conditions that need to be in place for simulations to inform platform and media governance. You will also actively help building the international consortium and cooperation across work packages.

The position will be embedded in the AI, Media & Democracy Lab and the Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. There is the possibility to expand your position from a 0.8 to 1 FTE position by contributing to some research and teaching activities within the lab and the Institute for Information Law.