Mahsa Alimardani is a DPhil candidate that is completing her research part-time at the OII on information controls and political communication in authoritarian settings, with a specific look at Iran. Mahsa is also the Associate Director of the Technology Threats & Opportunities program at the human rights organisation WITNESS.
Mahsa has over a decade of experience working at the intersection of digital rights, freedom of expression, and emerging technologies, leading research and advocacy on digital repression and contributing to the design and development of technologies that serve the most vulnerable. She serves in advisory roles as a Guardrails Advisor for De|Center, a Committee Member for SMEX’s Digital Rights Fund, and a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Digital Democracy Network. She also served as a Senior Information Controls Fellow supported by the Open Technology Fund.
Telegram; Social media; social movements; information controls; censorship; surveillance; MENA; Iran; digital activism.
With Dr Aliaksandr Herasimenka, Mahsa Alimardani, Dr Jens Foerderer, Dr Michaela Lindenmayr, Professor Helmut Krcmar, and Assistant Prof Maximilian Schreieck
Zoom
A joint webinar from the OII and TUM about governments using technology to control citizens and Firms’ fake follower use. This event is supported by the Dieter Schwarz Foundation
2 December 2022
In her latest blog, Oxford Internet Institute researcher Mahsa Alimardani shares her personal perspective on the power of the internet as an agent for societal change as an Iranian national studying in the UK.
12 October 2020
5 August 2020
24 June 2020
The Atlantic, 13 March 2026
The spread of fake photos of the Iran war is helping make the question Is this real? all but unanswerable. Written by DPhil candidate Mahsa Alimardani.
BBC, 07 March 2026
An unprecedented wave of AI-generated misinformation about the US-Israel war with Iran is being monetised by online creators with growing access to generative AI technology, experts have told BBC Verify.
MIT Technology Review, 19 April 2023
The term ‘smart city’ paints a picture of a tech-enabled oasis—powered by sensors of all kinds. But we’re starting to recognize what all these tools might mean for privacy. In this episode, we meet a researcher studying how this is being applied.
Senior Research Fellow
Ralph Schroeder has interests in shared virtual environments and the sociology of science and technology. His current research is related to digital media and populism, climate change online, AI and social theory, and the internet in China and India.
Professor of Society and the Internet
Helen Margetts is Professor of Society and the Internet, a political scientist specialising in digital government and politics. She was Director of the OII from 2011-18. She is a Professorial Fellow of Mansfield College.
