The public is in all but name a shareholder of AI companies, & yet is promised little in return to justify subsidies given on their behalf. In our new paper “Optimising for happiness in EU technology policy to repay public subsidies for AI,” we set out a plan for this to change tinyurl.com/2wsbtytr

Earlier this week, our community enjoyed a summer BBQ at Rhodes House to celebrate 25 years of the Oxford Internet Institute. A "Founder Stories" panel revisited the origin story of the department, and it was the perfect summer afternoon dedicated to acknowledging #OIIat25.

📄 New working paper from @swachter.bsky.social, @bmittelstadt.bsky.social and Dr Daria Onitiu, @oii.ox.ac.uk: EU tech policy should hold AI companies to account for real public wellbeing, not just lower risk. 1/3

📄New paper alert! Latest research from @towardsfairwork.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk shows digital care platforms use strategic ignorance to keep workers in the dark about pay, ratings, and accountability - reinforcing precarity across the sector. 1/3

@socsci.ox.ac.uk @oii.ox.ac.uk @oxfordlawfac.bsky.social

Looking for something to listen to this summer? In "How streaming affects musicians," Dr Robert Prey and Dr Seonok Lee unpack how the 'pro rata' streaming model dilutes payments to musicians, drawing on a survey of 1,200 musicians across five countries. open.spotify.com/episode/3aBD...

My interview @fortune.com @oii.ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk

Missed our 25th anniversary lecture? The recording is now live. @zephoria.bsky.social, Geri Gay Professor of Communication Cornell University, traced the internet's past, present, and uncertain future, and turned the lens on AI. Watch the recording here: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

Amidst a global scramble for sovereign AI, Prof Sandra Wachter, Professor of Technology and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, speaks to Fortune on what the Anthropic shutdown really exposed about Europe's tech dependency. fortune.com/2026/06/16/a...

New! Is banning under-16s from social media protection or exclusion asks @vickijnash.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk as she discusses the implications of the UK social media ban for teens, parents and policymakers in her latest opinion piece. Read the article: bit.ly/4ozF1UK

Applications are open for a fully funded DPhil studentship at the OII, supported by the Leverhulme Trust. The project investigates how museum visitors experience reproductions of cultural objects in collaboration with @GoldsmithsUoL. www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g...

🎓 New Doctor incoming! Congratulations to Djavan De Clercq on a successful viva on Friday! His thesis is titled: ‘Early warning meets optimization: reimagining proactive policy responses to agricultural risk’. 1/2

As the UK proposes banning under-16s from social media, OII DPhil Bhargav Srinivasa Desikan asks whether targeting users, rather than the product, is really the right approach. He spoke to Al Jazeera's Inside Story to share his view: www.youtube.com/watch?v=racy...

The OII's Dr Fabian Stephany argues that the more commodifiable your work is, the more likely you will be competing with AI. On the flip side, work quality and wages are likely to increase for experts working in lockstep with AI and demonstrating their expertise. www.youtube.com/shorts/7r2M0...

OII researchers are heading to ACM #FAccT2026 in Montréal (25-28 June) to present four peer-reviewed papers and lead a CRAFT workshop on fairness, accountability and transparency in AI and platform systems. Learn more: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/oii-research...

Excited to be organising a workshop at #GlobalFact2026 in Vilnius with @mmosleh.bsky.social, Naomi Miyashita, and Joseph Aylett-Bullock supported by the @oxpolicyengaged.bsky.social Seed Fund.

New! In his latest Op-Ed, @carlbfrey.bsky.social, @oii.ox.ac.uk explains how AI is ushering in a self-service economy. Read the piece in the @financialtimes.com: www.ft.com/content/47f4...

@oii.ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk @oxfordlawfac.bsky.social @univie.ac.at @wuvienna.bsky.social @tuwien.at @wzb.bsky.social @hiigberlin.bsky.social

Last few tickets remaining for Connected Life, our student led conference focused on what it means to live in an increasingly connected world. Join us for the public debate Thursday 25th June, 16.00-18.00 BST, Oxford Union. Register today! www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

New commentary from @rosariataddeo.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk on the trend towards technologies that sideline human judgment in decisions about targeting and firing. The question is how we ensure meaningful human control, accountability, and governance before these systems become normalised.

Missed last Friday’s @oii.ox.ac.uk's Pride Lecture? The recording of Dr Ewan Soubutts’ talk on “Twink Death” and the sociotechnical links between ageing and queerness online is now live. Watch here: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/... 🏳️‍🌈 #PrideMonth

@oii.ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk @univie.ac.at @wuvienna.bsky.social @tuwien.at

Event alert! Looking forward to hosting Dr Ignacio Gallego, @uc3m.es and Prof Tony Ageh, @trinitycollegeuoft.bsky.social for their talk, ‘Digital public service infrastructures for culture: is a non-commercial mandate possible? The dotPublic case study.’ Thursday 18 June, 16.00-17.00 BST 1/2

🚨 New paper alert! Watch this latest video from @oii.ox.ac.uk researcher Antonia-Felicia Toffert explaining why AI ethics in defence is facing a big paradox: Ethical principles keep proliferating, yet implementation keeps faltering.

“Social media does not create these tensions but it amplifies and accelerates them and a lot of that amplification is built into how the platform works...” @manueltonneau.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk on the rise of online hate and its spillover into real world violence. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Happening this week! Looking forward to hearing from @blurky.bsky.social, @oii.ox.ac.uk and Joshua Melville, Northwestern Uni, introducing new features in the software Network Canvas to help researchers with data collection. Thursday 11 June, 16.00-17.00 BST. Register today: bit.ly/4uzirgs

'Family' and 'community' can mean different things to different people, and the social sciences explore them at a range of scales. We'll be touching on global birth rates, parenting programmes, national refugee policies and more. Follow along with #SSDCommunities 🤝

ICYMI: Interesting @nytimes.com piece by Isabella Kwai which looks at the ways LinkedIn is changing, featuring insights from @oii.ox.ac.uk's @blurky.bsky.social.

‼️Updates on AI environmental impacts in the European context: I was interviewed by 3CAT.info about the environmental footprint of AI gigafactories. Governments are taking an ambiguous approach which risks jeopardising their own sustainability goals. www.3cat.cat/3catinfo/lim... @oii.ox.ac.uk

We look forward to welcoming Dr Andreu Casas, incoming Associate Professor of Politics, Technology, and Computational Social Science at the Department of Politics and International Relations and the Oxford Internet Institute, to Oxford this September.

Last few tickets remain for tomorrow's OII Pride Lecture, featuring talks by Dr Ewan Soubutts and Lucas LaRochelle. Friday 5th June, 1-3pm BST, followed by a drinks reception, Schwarzman Centre or Zoom Register to attend: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

Mapping human connection is one of the most compelling challenges in social research. Getting participants to accurately report their own networks is one of the hardest. On 11 June, the team behind Network Canvas comes to the OII to show how they are solving it. www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

Event alert! Join us for the annual @oii.ox.ac.uk Pride Lecture with Dr Ewan Soubutts and researcher Lucas LaRochelle. Friday 5th June, 13.00-15.00 BST, followed by a drinks reception. Register to attend: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/... 1/2

This week's departmental seminar is the last of the term: Synthetic Geographies and the Political Economy of Generative AI Prof. Mark Graham @oii.ox.ac.uk  📆 Fri 5 Jun, 3pm 📍64 Banbury Rd https://www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/event/synthetic-geographies-and-political-economy-generative-ai

🖥️ In our May Issue, Kayla Blomquist (@oii.ox.ac.uk) identifies patterns and strategies that AI great and middle powers use to navigate technological competition: https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiag028

New Doctor incoming! Congratulations to Felix Krones on a successful viva this week! Thesis: "Experimental Evaluation of Multimodal Machine Learning Models for Cardiovascular Conditions in ICU Patients"

What do policymakers need to know about AI's environmental footprint? OII's Dr Ana Valdivia has co-authored a new policy brief with ENS Paris colleagues analysing the regulatory questions raised by the rapid expansion of data centres.

25 years ago, many of us believed the internet could empower everyday people. What happened, and what does it mean for the AI era we are now entering? www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

How are tech-enabled states reshaping geopolitical competition, and what does that mean for middle powers navigating US-China rivalry? Keegan McBride joins us at the OII to share his insights. Join us Monday 1 June, 15:00, Schwarzman Centre - in-person only. www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

New research in Nature, led by former OII postdoc Dr Sakshi Ghai and co-authored by OII Prof. Andrew Przybylski, finds that 1 in 6 internet-using children across 12 countries in Africa and Asia have experienced technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation + abuse. www.lse.ac.uk/news/new-stu...

ICYMI: Watch @swachter.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk's new interview in ARTE documentary ‘Digital Aliens – The New Inequality’, exploring the impact of digitalisation on society. www.arte.tv/de/videos/12...

Event alert! Looking forward to welcoming Dr Keegan McBride, @tonyblairinstitute.bsky.social back to @oii.ox.ac.uk to give his upcoming talk, ‘Tech Geopolitics – The Current State of Play’. Join us in-person Monday 1 June, 15:00-16:00 BST. Register today! www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

As banks begin AI-driven job cuts, Dr Fabian Braesemann urges caution, "...because the point in time may come sooner than you think where the productivity potential of AI is realised, and you want these people." Read more: www.reuters.com/legal/legali...

@socsci.ox.ac.uk @oii.ox.ac.uk @oxfordlawfac.bsky.social @wzb.bsky.social @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social @hiigberlin.bsky.social

ICYMI: New commentary from @geoplace.bsky.social @towardsfairwork.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk on AI assistants and remote work in his latest interview with @restofworld.org.

⚖️ Prestige and status are essential in shaping foreign policy, especially when it comes to conflict motivations and weapons development. Read Kayla Blomquist’s (@oii.ox.ac.uk ) #openaccess article on how this affects AI competition: https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiag028

@oii.ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk @oxfordlawfac.bsky.social @univie.ac.at @wuvienna.bsky.social @tuwien.at @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social @wzb.bsky.social @hiigberlin.bsky.social

ICYMI: Listen to Dr Fabian Stephany @oii.ox.ac.uk speaking on the @manxradio.bsky.social documentary ‘AI, Work and the 15-hour week’, sharing his insights about how AI is changing the way we work. Read the article and follow the link to download the documentary: www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of...

"I don't want to get political but my research suggests ....." If you're in Oxford on 9 June do join us at @stannescollege.bsky.social for a fascinating discussion on the politics of policy and what this means for academic-policy engagement.

ICYMI: Watch @oii.ox.ac.uk researcher Franziska Sofia Hafner explain how friendly AI chatbots make more mistakes and tell people what they want to hear. Find out more and download the full study published in Nature: bit.ly/430LqOD. Watch the video: www.youtube.com/shorts/-IFPP...