Associate Professor
Professor Joss Wright is the group leader for the Subversive Technology Lab, his work focuses on computational approaches to social science questions, with a particular focus on technologies that exert, resist, or subvert control over information.
In today’s digital world, technology plays a dual role—it can be used to control, censor, and manipulate, but it can also resist oppression, protect privacy, and uphold human rights.
Governments, corporations, and other entities deploy technologies to monitor individuals, censor content, and influence societies. Meanwhile, activists, researchers, and technologists develop tools to counteract these measures, safeguard privacy, and uphold transparency.
The Subversive Technologies Lab examines technologies that exert, resist, or subvert control over information. Our work examines their dual role in:
Our research is interdisciplinary, combining technical expertise in computer and data science, machine learning, and Bayesian statistical inference, with social science approaches to understanding the impacts of these technologies on the human and natural world. We develop novel methods to measure and model hard-to-observe phenomena, such as network shutdowns and criminal activities in digital spaces.
The Oxford Internet Institute has pioneered research into privacy, surveillance and digital rights. We collaborate with civil society, activists, and policymakers to provide insights that help mitigate harm and maximise the benefits of subversive technologies.
We have ongoing relationships with The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Online Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), Access Now, The Open Technology Fund, UNEP WCMC, TRAFFIC, and other international organisations.
Associate Professor
Joss Wright's research interests lie in information controls, privacy-enhancing technologies, and cyber-enabled crime. His current research focuses on measuring internet censorship, and uncovering the online illegal wildlife trade.
Former MSc Student
Jit Ping holds a BA in Economics with minors in Data Science and International Relations. He has a keen interest in furthering social equity and promoting sustainability.
DPhil Student
William Lugoloobi is a Rhodes Scholar and DPhil student at the Oxford Internet Institute, where his research sits at the intersection of AI safety, mechanistic interpretability, and agentic systems.
This project seeks to determine how the factors that drive internet filtering can negatively affect vulnerable groups in society.
This project investigates the economic geographies of illegal economic activities in anonymous internet marketplaces.
This project will develop an international hub to track and analyse the global wildlife trade, both online and offline, and develop strategies to reduce the threat of the trade through social policy interventions.
