Naomi Appelman

Naomi was a PhD researcher at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) and a visiting researcher at the HIIG focussing on online speech regulation and platform governance. She has studied both law (majoring in information and media law) and political philosophy (majoring in democratic theory and STS) at the University of Amsterdam.

Her interdisciplinary PhD research is on the contestability of algorithmic online speech governance. She combines information law with (agonistic) political philosophy to asks how European law should facilitate the contestability of the automated content moderation systems governing online speech. The aim of facilitating this contestation is to minimise undue exclusion, often of already marginalised groups, from online spaces and democratise the power over how online speech is governed.

Her PhD is part of the Digital Transformation of Decision-making project and the Digital Legal Studies sectorplan and is supervised by prof. Natali Helberger and Prof. Joris van Hoboken.

Connected to her PhD research she has co-authored several reports and papers on the topic of online speech regulation and automated decision-making, see a full list of publications here. Finally, Naomi has previously done volunteer work at the Dutch digital rights NGO Bits of Freedom and is one of the founders of the NGO Racism and Technology Center.