Video recap: How Can We Build Resilience Against Disinformation in the Deepfake Era?

Disinformation is no longer just foreign or fringe – it’s local, AI-powered and reshaping European politics from within.

Why it matters: 

Galan Dall, Managing Editor at Visegrad Insight, began the discussion by highlighting that information manipulation and interference are no longer just an issue of FIMI. 

Influence operations are now smarter, more local and more personalised. In turn, threatening actors have moved from the fringes of our democracies to the mainstream – even into government – while traditional forms of defence struggle to keep up.

What they’re saying:

Alice Stollmeyer, Founder and Executive Director of Defend Democracy, highlighted that  foreign, domestic and technological threats have long been interlinked and mutually reinforcing. 

Adversaries have had over a decade to create a system of tools and strategies for malign influence online – and are now reaping the rewards of their labour, with growing doubt, division and distrust weakening our societies and democracies.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence has only accelerated this trend. Alina Inayeh, a Visegrad Insight Fellow and Non-resident Fellow with the German Marshall Fund, emphasised that AI – which can distribute messages more quickly and with better targeting than any human method – is used far more efficiently by malign actors than by pro-democratic forces. 

Inayeh concluded that we need to recognise the bigger threat at hand. The issue is no longer just one of disinformation, but of much larger information manipulation, as well as physical acts of sabotage. It is also increasingly driven by domestic actors and operations.

What we’re watching:

• Slovakia: government actors are actively espousing conspiracy theories that run against official government lines, confusing what people think they should believe. This is particularly dangerous in times of crisis, like the recent foot and mouth disease outbreak.

• READ MORE: Disinformation may be a bigger threat than foot and mouth disease.

• Polarisation: is increasing throughout our region, with Hungary, Slovakia and Poland ranked amongst the most polarised countries in Europe. 

• READ MORE: Slovakia’s polarisation crisis is a warning for Europe.

• EU vs Big Tech: the European Commission has good reason to be worried about the US companies behind Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs). It remains to be seen whether they will have the guts to act, however. The current leadership seems to have turned the Digital Services Act into a political bargaining chip with the US.
• READ MORE: MAGA fuels CEE propagandists. Will EU regulation fight back?

Between the lines:

Inayeh highlighted that malign actors are not just throwing out information at random – but according to well-developed strategies and with ever-improving resources. They make great use of technology, which has evolved and expanded with the rise of big tech, VLOPs, troll farms and AI. The same cannot be said for benevolent actors.

In turn, Stollmeyer warned that, despite what big tech companies may pretend, technology is not neutral. Instead, it is designed to accumulate wealth and power – structured to centralise control and become more addictive for users. 

Moreover, the idea that AI is objective, rational or transparent is a complete illusion. Stollmeyer explained that AI can only be a copy of who we already are and therefore our inequalities, stereotypes, bias – and the foreign disinformation we adopt. The more data we give it, the more we reinforce the pollution of our manipulation space.

The bottom line: 

Both speakers highlighted that the EU is reactive at best – engaged in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole – and well behind malign actors in use of new technologies. 

Inayeh said that more money, time and resources must be invested in the information space. Representatives also need to be more visible and stretch out their hand when problems arise, as during the Romanian election, combating negative narratives. It is otherwise hard to present an EU-level response when dealing with domestic actors and their interference.

Stollmeyer concluded that we need a shift in strategy: from regulation and debunking to changing the design of our information space – whether that be social media, VLOPs, chatbots or search engines. We need a shift from a focus on symptoms to root causes.

After all, without a shared reality, you cannot have democracy. We must ask why our societies are so permeable and look to protect the vulnerabilities.

Speakers:

Alina Inayeh – Visegrad Insight Fellow. She is currently a non-resident fellow with German Marshall Fund and the lead advisor for Aspen Institute Romania. She joined GMF in 2007 as the director of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, a project dedicated to strengthening cooperation and fostering development in the Black Sea region.

Alice Stollmeyer – Founder & Executive Director of Defend Democracy, a nonpartisan NGO defending democracy from foreign, domestic and technological threats. Alice has a background in social studies of science, technology and society. A former policy adviser, she now works at the nexus of democracy, security and technology, in particular on hybrid threats. Besides leading Defend Democracy, Alice is on the Steering Group of the Netherlands Democracy Coalition and she is an associated expert of the Euro-Atlantic Resilience Centre. Alice is in Politico’s #Power40 top influencers who are most effectively setting the agenda in politics, public policy and advocacy in Brussels.

The discussion was moderated by Galan Dall, Visegrad Insight Managing Editor.