Dr Mona Elswah

Dr Mona Elswah is a Lecturer in Digital Media Governance at the University of Exeter. Before joining Exeter, Elswah was also a consultant researcher at the Centre for Democracy and Technology, where she examined content moderation policies and measures in non-English languages, focusing on countries in the Global South. Mona was also a Research Associate at Oxford University’s Oxford Internet Institute (OII).  She was a Fellow in Technology and Human Rights at Harvard University’s Carr Centre, where she examined the algorithmic repression employed by tech companies against Arab users.

In 2023, she earned her PhD from the OII at the University of Oxford. In her thesis, she examined the impact of digital repression on social movements’ online tactics, focusing on Syria and Tunisia as case studies. At the OII, she was a core member of the Democracy and Technology program (formerly known as the Computational Propaganda Project), where she examined junk news, information operations, and platform governance in non-Western contexts.

Her work has been featured in several international media outlets, and she has presented it at various conferences and events. In addition to her PhD, Mona holds a master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication and a Post-graduate Diploma in Public Policy from the American University in Cairo.