The corona virus pandemic throws a critical light on current EU efforts to tackle disinformation. The COVID-19 infodemic confirms that online disinformation impacts our real world: it has economic costs and can even be lethal. Clearly, current efforts to tackle this problem are not enough. On Wednesday 10 June the EU Commission will publish a…
As a digital activist she learned to expose Russian disinformation.Now she launches a new project to defend democracy. As a leading EU influencer who works 24/7 at the frontline of geopolitics and digital advocacy, in 2014 Alice Stollmeyer witnessed first-hand the spread of trolls and bots. She didn’t need research to find them: they found…
With democracy hanging in the balance worldwide, an increasing number of people worry about their personal freedoms and rights. To give them a warm home where they can exchange about their hopes and fears, their plans and actions, Defend Democracy started organising monthly Democracy Drinks in Brussels (Belgium), the heart of the European Union. The…
On Wednesday 10 April 2019, Defend Democracy had the pleasure of organising a very special edition of its monthly Democracy Drinks: the European premiere of must-see documentary ‘Active Measures’ about Putin’s assault on democracy. The special screening took place at the European Parliament. Active Measures chronicles the most successful espionage operation in Russian history: the…
This article by Defend Democracy‘s Executive Director Alice Stollmeyer was first published at Protego Press. When I still was a student in social studies of science and technology, I loved reading and writing about new technologies shaping society and vice versa, about cyborgs blurring boundaries between ‘man and machine’, and about the sociology of things…
It may not look like war, but perhaps it should. Russia’s interference in American democracy proves that popular conception of the term needs to be updated – and failure to do so could increase U.S. susceptibility. By Patryk Babiracki Previously published in The Wilson Quarterly; republished on this page with kind permission of the author. “We…
By AP – A new report warns of deepening Russian interference throughout Europe and concludes that even as some Western democracies have responded with aggressive countermeasures, President Donald Trump has offered no strategic plan to bolster their efforts or safeguard the U.S. from again falling victim to the Kremlin’s systematic meddling. The report is the…
