Jan Rau is a researcher at the Leibniz-Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut and the Research Institute Social Cohesion in Hamburg. His work focuses on polarization, disinformation, the far right online and platform governance.
At the institute’s Media Research Methods Lab, he works on the (Social) Media Observatory, a project of the Research Institute Social Cohesion. He has been a visiting researcher at New York University and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and previously worked with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences and Princeton University. He holds an MSc in the Social Sciences of the Internet from the University of Oxford.
Jan advises policymakers at the EU, federal and state level on platform regulation and online extremism, including through expert reports for Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), the national Digital Services Coordinator. He has written for the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) , and regularly speaks at conferences and public events, such as re:publica. His research and commentary have been featured by The Guardian, Le Monde, ZDF and taz. He also works with frontline practitioners and runs workshops at schools and universities.
