Ricki-Lee Gerbrandt is a Research Fellow in Platform Governance at UCL’s Digital Speech Lab. She is a lawyer and legal scholar working at the intersection of media freedom, freedom of expression, and the governance of digital technologies. As a barrister she has litigated media, technology, and constitutional issues, including SLAPP suits, online defamation, publication bans, and cases concerning freedom of expression, privacy, harassment, and intellectual property. She has acted for national broadcasters, social media and telecommunications companies, governments, public officials, and journalists. Ricki-Lee’s current scholarly work investigates anti-democratic and extreme online content, disinformation, propaganda, and information warfare on internet communications platforms. She works from a legal perspective that critically engages with the social, political, and economic context in which the law operates.

At UCL, Ricki-Lee’s work concerns content curation and moderation on online communications platforms, with a focus on protecting high-value content. Also completing her PhD in Law at the University of Cambridge, Ricki-Lee’s dissertation argues that journalists’ digital safety is at the core media freedom and proposes solutions for tackling online abuse and disinformation campaigns targeting journalists through the regulation of social media platforms. Ricki-Lee holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Harvard Law School, a Juris Doctor (J.D) from the University of Calgary and a BA (Hon) in Political Science from Western University.

She was an Adjunct Instructor teaching Tort Law at the University of Calgary and regularly teaches workshops related to platform governance and information law in the Cambridge LL.M. program. Ricki-Lee provides submissions to legislators, gives media interviews, and publishes legal articles concerning media law, media freedom, and freedom of expression. Recent peer-reviewed articles include ‘Media freedom and journalist safety in the UK Online Safety Act’ published in the Journal of Media Law and ‘Threatening & protecting press publishers and journalism in the UK’s regulation of social media platforms’ (forthcoming, fall 2024) in a Special Issue of the Journal of Media Law.