Dear readers,
As we prepare for our annual conference, #Disinfo2026, we remain committed to ensuring that our work is independent, credible, and aligned with our mission.
In the current geopolitical and information environment, we carefully assess the sources of funding we accept. We have also chosen to make the conference more accessible by offering complimentary tickets to speakers from academia, research, journalism, and civil society.
These decisions are essential to preserving the independence, diversity, and quality of the event. However, we estimate these choices will reduce the conference’s potential income by approximately €50,000.
To help bridge this gap, we are looking for sponsors and supporters who share our commitment to strengthening the information ecosystem. Would your organisation be interested in supporting the conference? Or do you know a potential sponsor or funder? We’d be grateful for an introduction!
Without additional support, we may eventually need to increase participation fees in future editions of the conference. Our preference, however, is to keep the event as accessible as possible while maintaining the standards and independence that our community expects.
Thank you for helping us make this year’s conference possible.
Enjoy the rest of the read!
National responses and civil society initiatives
Europe is hardening its digital governance through state strategies, expanding civil litigation, and rigorous tracking of domestic influence operations. European states are tightening information security frameworks through diplomatic coordination and funding highlighted by Spain, convening senior information leaders from across Europe and a new €2 million OECD-EEA initiative across six nations. Concurrently, France reinforced its counter-interference leadership with its counter-disinformation X account, @FrenchResponse, winning the country’s top institutional communications award. Meanwhile, civil society is shifting toward financial and legal accountability – driving a mass legal claim against Snapchat over its “addictive design,” pushing strategies to aggressively demonetise repeat disinformation actors, and exposing the sudden operational collapse of Hungary’s massive pro-government propaganda factory.
- Spanish MFA hosts Club of Venice plenary meeting (MFA Spain)
- OECD and EEA launch €2 million information integrity initiative across six European countries (FMO)
- France’s anti-disinformation account @FrenchResponse wins the Grand Prix de la Communication de l’État (Influencia)
- Dutch foundation starts mass claim against Snapchat over alleged “addictive design” (NL Times)
- The “Demonetising Disinformers” report proposes enforcement strategies to reduce revenue streams for repeat disinformation actors (WHAT TO FIX)
- Hungary’s pro-government influencer network Megafon winds down operations (Lakmusz).
→ EVIDENCE & ENFORCEMENT WEBINAR | 25 June. The DSA in Court: What Democracy Reporting International Learnt from Suing X
Regulatory enforcement
European regulators are scaling up enforcement tools to directly challenge Big Tech. The European Commission extended its trusted flagger consultation deadline to 10 July, allowing civil society and industry experts extra time to refine the upcoming rules. Simultaneously, data from the Appeals Centre Europe transparency report reveals that the DSA’s Article 21 out-of-court dispute settlement mechanism is gaining significant operational traction, handling more than 30,000 cases from users challenging platform moderation. These developments come amid growing calls from policy analysts for Europe to reduce its dependence on Silicon Valley infrastructure and make fuller use of its regulatory powers to increase transparency and accountability on platforms such as X.
- EC extends trusted flagger consultation deadline to 10 July to refine platform rules (European Commission)
- ‘Appeals Centre Europe’ handles over 30.000 dispute cases (TechPolicy)
- Policy analysts urge Europe to use DSA enforcement powers to open up X (ECFR)
- Europe is starting to break up with US big tech. But it’s still abiding by the Silicon Valley rulebook (The Guardian)
Influence operations and hybrid threats
State actors and private intelligence entities are scaling transnational operations, blending digital disinformation with espionage, physical threats, and synthetic media. Investigations revealed that an Israel-based private intelligence firm allegedly targeted elections in France and Scotland, while pro-Russian networks deployed coordinated campaigns to disrupt Armenia’s vote and fuel anti-Western polarisation across 13 Latin American nations. Concurrently, adversarial state intelligence frameworks have pivoted toward direct recruitment and tactical actions, with the US dismantling a 13-domain Chinese corporate espionage network and Iran expanding its Handala cyber-influence brand into physical sabotage and global recruitment. Finally, a massive transatlantic enforcement action successfully shut down a major international deepfake network targeting high-profile female political and public figures.
- France accuses Israeli firm of interfering in Scottish elections and targeting the Scottish National Party (The Guardian)
- Viginum uncovers “Rokh Solis” digital interference operation targeting French municipal elections (Viginum)
- Anti-Pashinyan disinformation spikes on the eve of crucial Armenian parliamentary elections (Check First)
- Russia operates 13-country network across Latin America using highly coordinated regional proxy nodes (Agência Lupa)
- US seizes 13 website domains tied to alleged Chinese intelligence collection (Reuters)
- Iran expands Handala brand from cyber operations to physical threats and global recruitment (Recorded Future)
- Authorities in the US, France and Italy shut down massive deepfake porn site (Cyberscoop)
EU warns and sactions
The EU is leveraging sanctions, accession conditionality, and integrity frameworks to counter foreign interference and democratic backsliding. The Council of the European Union adopted a new sanctions package targeting Russian propaganda networks, including an influencer, a PR specialist, and a bishop, alongside military and energy assets, while penalising six individuals for destabilising Moldova. This stricter institutional oversight also targets internal and regional actors: the EU Transparency Register suspended the Orbán-linked think tank MCC Brussels over severe financial disclosure failures, while the European Parliament warned that Georgia’s accession path remains blocked due to its controversial “foreign agent” law and anti-European rhetoric.
- An influencer, a PR specialist, and a bishop linked to newly EU-sanctioned disinformation networks (Euronews)
- The Council sanctions six individuals for hostile activities aimed at destabilising Moldova (Council of the EU)
- New EU sanctions target propaganda alongside massive Russian military-industrial complex assets and energy revenues (Council of the EU)
- EU Transparency Register suspends Orbán-linked think tank MCC Brussels over financial disclosure failures (Corporate Europe Observatory)
- The European Parliament warns Georgia’s EU accession path remains blocked over its controversial “foreign agent” law and anti-European narratives (European Parliament)
AI Disinfo watch
AI companies may soon face greater accountability for their outputs, but their systems remain vulnerable to external attacks and serious biases. A landmark German court ruling found Google directly liable for hallucinations in its AI Overviews, signaling that tech giants could lose traditional liability protections. This legal exposure matches severe technical risks: research reveals Europe’s Mistral model, Le Chat, is highly susceptible to Russian disinformation, while a separate study shows how companies are using Reddit to manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search proving that “poisoning” LLMs is no longer just a state-level tactic but a business strategy. Adding to the concern, LLMs systematically underperform for non-native English speakers, while current AI-text detection systems remain critically open to manipulation.
- Landmark German ruling declares Google’s AI Overviews are Google’s own words and makes it liable for false answers. Google is challenging the decision. (The Decoder / Reuters)
- Europe’s AI champion Mistral vulnerable to Russian disinformation, study finds (Financial Times / NewsGuard)
- Companies are using Reddit to manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search (404 Media)
- Audit reveals LLM targeted underperformance disproportionately impacts vulnerable, non-native English demographics (Poole-Dayan, E., Roy, D., & Kabbara, J.)
- Audit reveals commercial AI text detectors are highly vulnerable to simple adversarial bypasses (Indicator)
Explore more in our recently updated AI Disinfo Hub, where we gather the latest research, tools, and analysis on AI-driven disinformation.
Monetisation & digital infrastructures
Tech platforms continue to face scrutiny over monetisation systems that generate revenue from fraudulent, misleading, or sanctioned content. Meta faces growing scrutiny after reports found that Facebook continued running ads on pages repeatedly flagged by fact-checkers, while Lloyds Bank accused the company of profiting from consumer scams. Simultaneously, platform monetisation strategies are triggering regulatory and legal battles: the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is evaluating a petition from X to scrap a $150 million privacy penalty linked to its historical ad-targeting practices, while separate reports reveal corporate advertising appearing on YouTube channels tied to blacklisted Iranian state broadcasters. Meanwhile, reporting on Polymarket has raised questions over opaque influencer payments and their potential impact on prediction markets.
- Facebook allows repeatedly fact-checked pages to continue running ads despite enforcement actions (EuroNews)
- Lloyd’s bank accuses Meta of actively profiting from financial scams (The Times)
- FTC considers setting aside or modifying $150 million privacy penalty against X (The Record)
- Advertising appears on YouTube channels linked to sanctioned Iranian state broadcasters (Wired)
- Report raises questions over Polymarket-linked payments to political influencers (Politico)
Research & Platform governance
Independent research and investigative reporting highlight growing concerns over how recommendation systems, unmoderated environments, and disinformation dynamics contribute to real-world harms. Recent audits reveal how algorithmic pipelines actively convert mainstream content, like fitness recommendations, into spaces that foster misogyny and justify gender-based violence. The physical dangers of cross-platform amplification are further underscored by case studies tracking how targeted anti-immigration disinformation fanned the flames of street violence across Dublin, Southport, and Belfast. Simultaneously, these digital vulnerabilities strain public health infrastructures, leaving frontline medical staff to battle a massive wave of dangerous food supplement disinformation targeting vulnerable patients.
- From fitness to justifying gender-based violence: how algorithms build machista culture in real time (El País)
- Dublin, Southport, Belfast: Who is fanning the flames of anti-immigration unrest? (EDMO)
- The UK National Health Service (NHS) staff battling wave of food supplement disinformation (The Guardian)
Brussels corner
The democratic news ecosystem needs adequate funding – here’s how it can be done. Europe’s defence against disinformation rests not only on regulation, but also on the civil society organisations that produce the evidence, investigations and expertise underpinning it. As discussions on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) move forward, we propose creating an independent endowment for the democratic news ecosystem to provide long-term, flexible and independent funding for this essential work.
Enforcement without investigation. As part of the report Clickbait Cures, Reset Tech documented more than 350.000 ads related to unregulated or dangerous health products on Meta and Google, including 76 formally recognised as illegal under Member State laws. In a parliamentary question, MEP Alexandra Geese (Greens/EFA) asked whether the European Commission would conduct a DSA compliance investigation into the protection of public health. In response, the Commission pointed out existing legal actions taken against Meta, as well as information requests submitted to Google Play and Google Search related to scams and fraudulent content. It also stated that it “will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers under the DSA if evidence of non-compliance is found”. In short, the Commission did not commit to investigating the scale of this non-compliance, but if it found something as part of this non-investigation, it would not hesitate to act.
Whose privacy and data are being protected? In a parliamentary question, 24 MEPs asked what action the Commission will take in relation to the case of EU officials and members of civil society exposed in the US House Judiciary Committee report. In its response, the Commission first emphasised its efforts to protect the confidential data of companies. It then stated that companies, whose identity it did not specify, may have made themselves liable for breaches of the GDPR, and undertook to provide support, the nature of which it did not specify, to the individuals affected by the data protection breaches and broader calumny they have suffered.
Explore the full Brussels Corner on our website.
✊ A message we stand behind
We want to draw your attention to a deeply important reflection shared in this post from GlobalFact 2026. It highlights a harsh reality: many vital colleagues couldn’t attend due to budget shortfalls, whilst others were missing because the political winds shifted, and institutional support shifted with them. As EU DisinfoLab, we want to echo this message and state clearly that we are standing firm with the fact-checking community, with all the researchers, journalists, and defenders of truth who do the heavy lifting every single day, through every political season. Please read, reflect, and share.
🤝 Community meetups
If you are in Brussels this evening (Wednesday 24 June), we are holding another meetup to bring together everyone working on disinformation and tech policy. Pop along for some great conversation, excellent company, and a chance to make new connections – just reply to this email, and we’ll share the practical details with you.
We regularly run these informal meetups in Brussels and right across Europe, so keep checking back here for our next locations!
👀 Spotted
This week, Brussels is contending with an unseasonable heatwave — though the pace of events shows no sign of relenting. It is very much event season, with a series of high-level gatherings: a high-level event on resilience hosted by DG JUST, the annual JRC workshop (in which our colleagues Inès and Dario will be participating), and an event at the Polish Permanent Representation to the EU touching on FIMI and the European Center for Democratic Resilience. Across all of these, the same questions keep coming up: how can our field continue to fulfil its mission?
🧰 Tools & learning
La Buloteca. Maldita’s newly launched collaborative hub designed to scale up the fight against misinformation and disinformation. It gamifies the verification process by allowing citizens to open cases, collaborate on open investigations, and crowdsource community clues to dismantle deep fakes and viral narratives in real time.
💬 EU DisinfoLab webinars
- EVIDENCE & ENFORCEMENT | 25 June. The DSA in Court: What Democracy Reporting International Learnt from Suing X
- AI DISINFO WATCH | 2 July. China’s AI strategy and its impact on the global information space.
Missed a session? Watch our past webinars.
🗓️ Events on our radar
- 25 June. JRC DISINFO Workshop: Registrations are still open to attend remotely. (Brussels & online)
- 25 June. Level Up Forum: “Towards Inclusive Media Literacy: Protecting and Empowering Older Europeans” (Brussels & online)
- 29 June. EDMO BELUX Lunch Lecture: Is the Internet compatible with democracy? (online)
- 2 July. Digital futures: Centre for Digital Trust and Society Forum 2026 (Manchester, in-person)
- 26 August. DDC Pre-Conference: Social Media Influence & Understanding Digital Influence Infrastructures (Aarhus, in-person)
- 7–8 September. Countering Disinformation, Raising Democratic Resilience. EDMO BELUX 2.0 (Brussels, in-person)
- 15–18 September. Psychological Approaches to Misinformation in Minds and Society. CIMCYC International Doctoral Summer School (Granada, in-person)
- 7–8 October. #Disinfo2026. EU DisinfoLab (Vilnius, in-person)
- 14–16 October. GCJT & iMEdD’s Ideas Zone European Journalist Retreat on Trauma, Resilience and Ethical Reporting (Laconia, in-person)
- 11–12 November. FACTCHECK Final Conference: Susceptibility to and dissemination of fake news (Porto, in-person)
- 23-25 March, 2027. Cambridge Disinformation Summit 2027 (Cambridge, in-person)
🤝 Jobs & opportunities
- EUISS. Senior Policy Analyst – Hybrid Threats
- EDRi. Senior Policy Advisor
- ISD. Foundation Partnerships Manager
- Thomson Media. Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning + several other roles.
- ActiveFence. Multiple positions
- CCDH. Multiple positions
- Moonshot. Multiple positions
- NewsGuard. Staff Reporter
- Center for Humane Technology. Fellowship Program
- SHARE Foundation. Applications open for the 2026 Digital Rights Summer School
- CDT. Academic Year Externship
- Europol. Internship
Have something to share – an event, job opening, publication? Send your suggestions via the “get in touch” form below, and we’ll consider them for the next edition of Disinfo Update.