As Head of Tech Research, Oliver leads our research work and partnerships on policy areas including the Digital Services Act and the AI Act. He is also responsible for integrating our research strategy into campaigning and advocacy. Oliver previously worked on platform and data governance as an official in Downing Street in the UK, and as an analyst of online harms for CASM Technology, The Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Demos. He holds a PhD in sociology of social media from University College London and a degree in Natural Sciences & History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University.
X’s Grok chatbot is the focus of yet another scandal after generating pictures of real people in bikinis, without their consent, including children. But the problem of AI-generated sexual images without consent on X goes much further than Grok — and X blocked our research to address the problem. The EU Commission needs to step up their game to protect people from this kind of violence.
The EU Commission has published the delegated act on data access under the Digital Services Act (DSA). How much it will achieve remains to be seen in practice.
AlgorithmWatch has submitted expert input to the EU on systemic risks stemming from online platforms and search engines. We argued risks come not just from technology, but also (1) the attitudes of companies and (2) lack of transparency around enforcement. This input was at the invite of the European Board of Digital Services and the EU Commission, to help prepare their first report on systemic risks under the Digital Services Act. Read our full response here:
AlgorithmWatch and the DFRLab have produced new research on X during German elections. We analyzed X posts by German politicians as well as prominent anti-far-right organizations, and found that the most viral posts are dominated by references to Elon Musk and his support for the AfD.
On 3 June, Meta released an EU election monitoring dashboard, responding to investigations by the EU Commission under the Digital Services Act. It is riddled with basic errors, raising severe concerns about Meta’s engagement with risks of electoral interference.
2024 is an important election year. While citizens all over the world get ready to cast their ballot, many people worry about AI: Are chatbots and fake images a threat to democracy? Can we still trust what we see online? We explain why the hype around AI and elections is somewhat overblown and which real risks we need to watch out for instead.
The UK did not need to throw its full weight behind the Frontier Risks narrative - there are other approaches it could have taken.