Oxford Internet Institute

Tech giants blocking some Ukraine and Gaza posts under new online rules Tech companies are restricting debates of public interest to comply the Online Safety Act, analysis shows.

"This trend is very worrying when opaque rules are now applied to make these take down decisions, especially in the current political climate," she said.

Read more: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Tech giants blocking some Ukraine and Gaza posts under new online rules Tech companies are restricting debates of public interest to comply the Online Safety Act, analysis shows.

@swachter.bsky.social speaks to the BBC about social media companies blocking war-related content "in an attempt to comply with the Online Safety Act".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

His dissertation is: ‘Future Proof: the Meanings and Makings of The Fibre Project on Haida Gwaii,’ and was selected for its excellence in the execution of a critical ethnography and an infrastructures approach to the fibre network of the islands of Haida Gwaii.

Congrats!

The Association of Internet Researchers selected OII DPhil graduate Dr Tomas Walker-Borsa, also of @stedmundhall.bsky.social, as the winner of its annual dissertation award.

Read the full announcement on Tomas's award here: aoir.org/2025disserta...

🌟Students have praised her encouragement of lively group discussions about the benefits and limitations of AI.

Congratulations to Dr @anavaldi.bsky.social (Lecturer in AI, Government & Policy @oii.ox.ac.uk ) on receiving a #TeachingExcellence Award!

www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/article/winn...

Had the best time attending @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social for the Summer Doctoral Program hosted by @berkeleyischool.bsky.social and @oii.ox.ac.uk in collaboration with @bcnm.bsky.social 👩🏽‍💻🌁🇺🇸 Thank you to everyone who made this fantastic experience possible 🥰 #PhD #doctoralresearch #summerschool

Congratulations to @manueltonneau.bsky.social for receiving an Outstanding Paper Award at #ACL2025!

Have you read our US report?

Fairwork scored 11 major platforms on worker fairness. Not one passed the halfway mark.
fair.work/en/fw/public...
#Fairwork #GigWork #DigitalLabour #US #WorkerRights

And that’s how it’s done! A fantastic Summer Doctoral Programme delivered in collaboration with @berkeleyischool.bsky.social. Great to see such a talented bunch of scholars come together to share their joint interests in researching the internet and society. Until next year!

OII | Teaching Assistants

Last call: Are u excited about emergent tech? I am hiring 2 TAs for my course Internet Technologies and Regulation @oii.ox.ac.uk . Apply now! Deadline 4 August tinyurl.com/4abdfdm4 @socsci.ox.ac.uk @oxfordlawfac.bsky.social @blavatnikschool.bsky.social @ucl.ac.uk @cambridgelaw.bsky.social

AI For Good Lab - Microsoft Research The Microsoft AI For Good team helps researchers and organizations reach solutions on some of the world’s biggest problems.

Find out more about how the Institute’s work is helping to fund his SkillScale research project exploring the AI skills gap. bit.ly/4mfhqWK 2/2

Congratulations to Dr Fabian Stephany @oiioxford named as one of the first cohort of Senior Fellows, at the Microsoft AI Economy Institute (AIEI) - a new think‑tank dedicated to understanding how artificial intelligence reshapes jobs, skills, and education. 1/2

New paper alert! Great to see the latest paper from Dr Johann Laux @oii.ox.ac.uk and @hannahruschemeier.bsky.social @fernunihagen.bsky.social exploring how the EU’s AI Act addresses automation bias is now published!

Using #LLMs to improve claim matching and #misinformation response. Come see our poster at #ACL2025NLP now (#430) or read the paper.
aclanthology.org/2025.finding...

New study! Co-authored by @josswright.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk, the study explores how media coverage and public opinion clashed over wild meat consumption in Central Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Full details below. @biology.ox.ac.uk @wcs.org @cifor-icraf.org

If you missed this presentation, check out the paper here:
aclanthology.org/2025.acl-lon...

Apply now!

Find out more about the OII researchers latest work and download their new papers being presented at the conference today: bit.ly/46wIcpi @computermacgyver.bsky.social, Jonathan Rystrom, @deeliu97.bsky.social #NLProc #Vienna 4/4

Watch Jabez Magomere presenting his co-authored paper ‘When Claims Evolve: Evaluating and Enhancing the Robustness of Embedding Models Against Misinformation Edits’ later today. Mon 28 July, 18.00-19.30. Hall 4/5. 3/4

Join @manueltonneau.bsky.social as he presents his co-authored paper ‘HateDay: Insights from a Global Hate Speech Dataset Representative of a Day on Twitter’ this afternoon. Mon 28 July, 14.00-15.00. Hall A. 2/4

New! Heading to #ACL2025NLP today? Hear from @oii.ox.ac.uk researchers presenting new research and sharing recent findings which aim to help address inequalities in natural language processing models. 1/4

OII | Beyond Safety: The Digital Environment We Owe Children Discussions around child internet safety often assume a hostile online environment, focusing on harm prevention. OII VPF Rony Yuria argues that redesigning the online environment itself will help make...

Read the full opinion piece here: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

“The difficulty in defining/measuring these harms suggests that while content restrictions may sometimes be necessary, they are insufficient. Rather than an endless game of whack-a-mole, we might better serve young people by understanding why they believe the mis- or disinformation they encounter.”

OII | Beyond Safety: The Digital Environment We Owe Children Discussions around child internet safety often assume a hostile online environment, focusing on harm prevention. OII VPF Rony Yuria argues that redesigning the online environment itself will help make...

Discussions around child internet safety often assume a hostile online environment, focusing on harm prevention. OII Visiting Policy Fellow Rony Yuria argues that redesigning the online environment itself will help make safety a natural outcome.

www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

Book talk - 'How Progress Ends : Technology, Innovation, And The Fate… REGISTRATION To attend in-person at the Oxford Martin School, please scroll down to the registration form at the bottom of this page To watch live online…

In his new book, "How Progress Ends", OII Prof Carl Frey challenges the belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable.

Join him at the @oxmartinschool.bsky.social on 15 Oct, 5-6pm, to celebrate the launch of his new publication.

Register: www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/events/how-p...

What are the risks of a discourse that exaggerates the role and risk of GenAI around elections?

We look at this question in more detail in another excerpt from @sachaltay.bsky.social & my paper on GenAI and elections, this time kindly published by the @oii.ox.ac.uk.

Congratulations to Prof Greg Taylor @oii.ox.ac.uk ‬awarded a #TeachingExcellence Award for Sustained Commitment to Education.

Prof Taylor frequently receives the highest overall average score on student surveys within the Institute!

More about his teaching: www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/article/winn...

Still time to apply to work with me @ox.ac.uk @oii.ox.ac.uk - deadline 4 August!

Don’t Panic (Yet): Assessing the Evidence and Discourse Around Generative AI and Elections

Download the full paper published by @knightcolumbia.org: knightcolumbia.org/content/dont... @reutersinstitute.bsky.social @towcenter.bsky.social
2/2

New blog! ‘Consequences of a skewed discourse around generative AI and elections’. Read why @felixsimon.bsky.social, @oii.ox.ac.uk and @sachaltay.bsky.social, University of Zurich, believe claims about the impact of generative AI on elections have been overblown: bit.ly/46YTZg7 1/2