Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt will speak on a panel alongside Jeff Modisett (Fulbright Fellow and Honorary Professor of Practice at UCL) and Judith van Erp (Professor of Regulatory Governance at the University of Utrecht) chaired by Colin Provost (UCL Department of Political Science).

In recent years, the detrimental health effects of social media have been undeniably exposed, particularly in the case of young people. Algorithms employed by social media platforms to keep people engaged with their devices raise questions of whether such algorithms foster addiction. Moreover, an abundance of evidence has demonstrated that the online consumption patterns can lead to suicidal thoughts and other mental health problems. 

Regulators around the world have taken a variety of approaches towards dealing with these problems. Legislation, lawsuits, and reputation-based “naming and shaming” tactics, have all been utilised to combat the public health effects of social media. In this event, we explore these different approaches and attempt to discern what impact they have had thus far, both separately and jointly, for the important question of how to regulate social media for public health.

Information on the event can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/events/2025/oct/regulating-social-media-and-future-public-health