The event was opened by Jakub Szymik (Founder of CEEDDW) and Adrien Duguet’s (President of ACTE) welcoming remarks. An introduction by Katarzyna Prusak-Górniak, Head of the Digital Affairs Unit from the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the EU, then set the tone of the debate. She recalled the important intersection of the topics discussed during the event and the priorities of the Polish presidency, such as information security, including the fight against misinformation and the enhancement of cybersecurity through innovative tools.
The introduction was followed by a keynote video message by the Executive Vice-President (EVP) of the European Commission Henna Virkkunen. In her speech, EVP Virkkunen insisted that the European Democracy Shield (EUDS) needs to build collective ability to counter disinformation and campaigns amplified by artificial intelligence (AI). She underlined the need to actively consult citizens, enhance their overall engagement and ultimately strengthen society’s resilience. Henna Virkkunen then recalled the need for more media literacy education which, together with citizen’s active engagement, would continuously sustain the integrity of elections in the long-term. Furthermore, opportunities that sound use of AI brings, shall be implemented for countering information manipulation campaigns. Finally, she underscored the need to take further steps in smart and effective enforcement of the existing regulations.
Our institutional panel brought together several high-level speakers:
The main topics brought-up in the panel were focusing on the desired priorities of the EU Democracy Shield, fostering European AI innovations supporting democracy, and enhancing connections between institutions and citizens as part of the EUDS.
All the speakers underlined the importance of creating a coherent and common strategy to promptly counter hybrid threats and foreign information manipulation campaigns, as well as to effectively control algorithms that could undermine social cohesion. Panelists further agreed on the necessity of enforcing existing legislation (Digital Services Act, Political Advertising Regulation, etc.), or tools such as the FIMI Toolbox, as well as on empowering citizens through online and offline active engagement.
MEP Nathalie Loiseau insisted on putting more pressure on the large platforms (VLOPs) with regard to their role in amplifying disinformation campaigns. Such campaigns could further divide the citizens and lead to vulnerabilities jeopardizing the community and European values. She also underscored the need to consider more robust citizens’ expression and supported the innovative and trusted bottom-up tools.
"We do not need further regulations, we need them to be respected by everybody. Plus, we need to provide funding, support and visibility to the civic tech actors pushing for common good.” - MEP Nathalie Loiseau
MEP Mika Aaltola recalled Finland’s long-lasting experience with foreign interference and information manipulation. He emphasised that high trust within the society is essential. According to him, political actors have to cooperate with civic actors to co-create a safe and common space without disinformation, an ideal ecosystem for the integrity of democratic processes.
“It is difficult to have authentic and organic citizen participation, if external actors are interfering, that is why we need both the citizens’ empowerment and the external aspect of the Democracy Shield.” - MEP Mika Aaltola
Martyna Bildziukiewicz emphasised the complexity of countering FIMI at times, where technical developments, and not only AI-powered, unfold at striking pace. She called upon the external aspect of EUDS that proves crucial in dismantling information manipulation focused for instance on EU’s help to Ukraine. She also underlined that hearing out citizens and their active engagement means securing the information space.
“Stratcom is one of the fields where AI tools can be used, we can be more strategic — we need to counterattack and cooperate” - Martyna Bildziukiewicz
Iverna McGowan underlined that the amplification of disinformation is also linked with extensive use of the online space during the recent pandemic. She drew attention to the fact that digital tools that spread misinformation could also be transformed and used to tackle hate speech or help with fact-checking. Ms McGowan equally insisted on protection of citizen voices in the public debate, emphasising the need for safe and pluralistic participatory spaces that may prevent the emergence of disinformation campaigns. Ultimately, she pointed out the need to properly equip public institutions with tools to protect official information and citizens in the online space.
“We have to equip public institutions with tools that will allow them to create safe and protected space for democratic processes, or pluralist discussions.” - Iverna McGowan
In his conclusion remarks, Axel Dauchez, Co-Founder and President of Make.org pointed out that it is crucial to focus on making democratic processes resilient, which means not only focusing on the elections. He sketched out an idea of regulating influencers who can have decisive powers in shaping the whole information ecosystem. Furthermore, he emphasised that citizens’ resilience has to be built on a personal level, while their engagement shall be amplified to attain millions of participants EU-wide. Ultimately, he called to protect the legitimacy of electoral processes, safeguarding multilateralism, and putting special responsibility on actors that shape AI and AI-powered tools.
“The problem is not only the protection of democratic processes, but also the protection of the democratic institutions. That is why, we need to protect the pillars of EU democracies, free press, the academia and civil society organisations, to rebuild the overall architecture of trust in our society.” -Axel Dauchez
The conference was concluded by Silke Toenshoff, Head of Unit from the Communication Directorate of the Committee of the Regions, who underscored the importance of fulfilling citizens’ expectations when it comes to their participation and presented AI solutions that can help institutions to be more connected to citizens.
“Citizen participation, both online and offline, multinational and local, can enhance trust. At the Committee of the Regions, we also implemented the Make.org Panoramic AI tool for public communication as well as for a statutory meeting, so that citizens have better access and we are more transparent towards them.” - Silke Toenshoff
We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the Committee of the Regions for hosting our event at their premises, as well as to the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the EU for according us the patronage of the Polish Presidency to the Council of the European Union.
You can find the replay on the following link: https://webstreaming.cor.europa.eu/en/cor/ai-citizen-participation-and-democratic-shield-challenges-and-opportunities