Dr Fabian Stephany
Researcher
Profile
Fabian is a Researcher in Computational Social Science at the OII, University of Oxford, a Research Affiliate at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin and a Research Fellow at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna. Fabian is interested in the application of computational social science in fields like digital skills, migration, innovation, and e-governance. With the iLabour project at the OII, he studies the global dynamics of Online Labour Markets.
Fabian holds a PhD and degrees in Economics and Social Sciences from different European institutions, including Universitá Bocconi Milan and University of Cambridge. As an Economist and Senior Data Scientist, Fabian has been working in the private sector and for various actors in the international policy landscape, such as the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank or the OECD in Paris.
Research interests
AI skills, complexity science, computational social science, machine learning, social and technological networks, social capital, Twitter, Wikipedia.
Position held at the OII
- Researcher, November 2019 –
Blog
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Wikipedia: A Challenger’s Best Friend?
3 November 2020
Authors: Hamza Salem, Fabian Stephany
Predicting the outcome of the 2020 US Senate election using Wikipedia pageview data by Hamza Salem, Oxford Internet Institute MSc Alumnus and Dr Fabian Stephany, ...
Read More Wikipedia: A Challenger’s Best Friend? -
Hijacking Hashtags in Times of COVID-19: How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter
21 October 2020
Authors: Fabian Stephany, Philipp Darius
Philipp Darius, doctoral candidate, Centre for Digital Governance, Hertie School, Berlin and Dr Fabian Stephany, Postdoctoral Researcher, Oxford Internet Institute, explain how political actors ...
Read More Hijacking Hashtags in Times of COVID-19: How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter -
Why the Digital Society needs the Open Society
13 July 2020
Authors: Fabian Braesemann, Fabian Stephany
May 2020 – It was big news, not only for the tech industry, when Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the company would go ...
Read More Why the Digital Society needs the Open Society -
Beyond Contact-Tracing Apps – How Trust Shapes E-Governance
18 June 2020
Authors: Fabian Stephany
In fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, South Korea emerged as a role model. The country managed to greatly slow down the epidemic at an early ...
Read More Beyond Contact-Tracing Apps – How Trust Shapes E-Governance -
The Digital Workforce ‘Inside Scoop’ podcast
28 May 2020
Authors: Fabian Stephany
The internet has blurred the lines between the online and offline workforce. Avory has calculated that roughly $700B in paid workers could move some ...
Read More The Digital Workforce ‘Inside Scoop’ podcast -
Pandemic-proof jobs? IT freelancers in high demand, other online workers facing cuts
19 May 2020
Authors: Fabian Stephany, Vili Lehdonvirta, Michael Dunn, Steven Sawyer
How are online labour markets reacting to the COVID-19 crisis? Does demand for online work diminish, as companies are facing declining revenues and reduce ...
Read More Pandemic-proof jobs? IT freelancers in high demand, other online workers facing cuts -
How worried are businesses about COVID-19? A novel indicator measures industry-specific risk assessments in times of the pandemic
24 April 2020
Authors: Fabian Stephany, Fabian Braesemann, Niklas Stoehr, Philipp Darius, Ole Teutloff, Leonie Neuhäuser
A summary of The CoRisk-Index: A data-mining approach to identify industry-specific risk assessments related to COVID-19 in real-time In short The COVID-19 pandemic has ...
Read More How worried are businesses about COVID-19? A novel indicator measures industry-specific risk assessments in times of the pandemic -
The pandemic depresses online labour markets, but some countries are bouncing back – Insights from South Korea, Germany, and the United States
24 April 2020
Authors: Fabian Stephany
In our last iLabour blog post we looked at the response of online labour markets to the COVID-19 pandemic and realised that the downscaling effect might be dominating ...
Read More The pandemic depresses online labour markets, but some countries are bouncing back – Insights from South Korea, Germany, and the United States -
Pandemic’s effects on online freelance work
2 April 2020
Authors: Fabian Stephany
Pandemic’s effects on online freelance work: distancing dividend or downscaling loss? The pandemic is causing economic upheaval around the world, as shops and offices ...
Read More Pandemic’s effects on online freelance work -
Team news: Original trio moves on, new members join
17 February 2020
Authors: Vili Lehdonvirta
Featured image of the original iLabour research team in June 2016 (from left): Alex Wood, Vili Lehdonvirta, Otto Kässi, and Gretta Corporaal. The ...
Read More Team news: Original trio moves on, new members join
Press
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Britain employs more ‘crowdworkers’ than anywhere in Europe
29 December 2020 The Telegraph
Fears raised that online platforms encourage gig workers to undercut each other on price in 'race to the bottom'.
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A threat to freelancers, but also to permanent employees
12 May 2020 Journalisten
Graphics, text and marketing can be obtained at a fraction of Danish prices on global freelance platforms. “Simple tasks will be massively outsourced,” says Oxford researcher. A threat to you and me?
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New Online Index Analyzes Trade Concerns Before COVID-19
6 May 2020 Smart Lighting
Businesses across all sectors are increasingly concerned about the impact of COVID-19, according to the CoRisk Index, a new online tool from the University of Oxford.
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New online tool CoRisk-Index reveals business concerns over coronavirus
1 May 2020 Government Computing
A new online tool called CoRisk-Index from the University of Oxford revealed that businesses across all the sectors are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect of the coronavirus outbreak.
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How the pandemic consumed the labor market
30 April 2020 The Washington Post
As the novel coronavirus pandemic brought business to a halt, the pain rippled outward, blowing up sector after sector. According to a detailed analysis of unemployment claims, no industry was left untouched.
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This is the level of fear of corona
4 April 2020 WirtschaftsWoche
The corona virus unsettles the entire economy, from consumers to corporations. Researchers are now using Internet data to trace the worries almost in real time.
Integrity Statement
I conduct my research in line with the University's academic integrity code of practice.