The event gathered experts from the European Parliament, from civil society, as well as key stakeholders in the ecosystem of digital participation and innovation. They shared their remarks on recent evolutions in the EU policies as well as their experience from the field and examples on how to efficiently counter increasing disinformation and hate speech online.
Anja Wyrobek, Legal Policy Advisor, European Parliament, highlighted the importance of a thorough and strong enforcement of the Digital Services Act. It already provides many tools and mechanisms to protect civic space online.
Vassilis Ntousas, Head of European Operations at Alliance for Securing Democracy by the German Marshall Fund, emphasised the relevance of funding mechanisms on EU level. Often, they are not the best suited to support innovative civic tech to thrive.
Evelien Nieuwenburg, Co-founder of Dembrane, shared her experience as a civic tech practitioner. In her view, Democracies rely on dialogues between people. In her work, she wants to increase the efficiency of such engagenes and ensure tangible results.
Tomáš Kriššák, Senior stratcom consultant at Gerulata Technologies, underlined the crucial role of solutions that help to protect our societies from desinformation. They are key to support and protect our liberal democracies.
Alexis Prokopiev, Director of Governance & Democracy Innovation at Make.org and Vice President of ACTE, outlined the bridge that civic tech can play between policy discussions and practical views as well as experiences on the ground. Ultimately, they want to ensure that both, democracy and technology ecosystems can work well together.
Adrien Duguet, Founder of Citipo and ACTE President, put forward the key role that ACTE has in representing the European civic tech community in Brussels and beyond. The diversity of members from different member states is a strong asset in that regard.
The following debate proves particularly crucial in times of the EU institutions’ reaction on rising hybrid threats aiming at our democratic systems and institutions. This issue is of high concern for ACTE’s members. They actively work on tools that strengthen democracy and allow for more innovative solutions in that space.
ACTE is also a Democratic Shield task force member. The top priority for the Shield’s task force remains the urgent need to address the challenges of disinformation and democratic backsliding, as well as the misuse of technology.
Make.org and ACTE are delighted that this initiative was complemented by an official proposition of the EU Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen who joined the call for creating a European Democracy Shield to counter disinformation and information manipulation, or even foreign interference online (amongst other matters).
In the Democratic Shield Task Force’s vision paper, we recommend to leverage digital technologies for verification and combat of disinformation and foreign interference. Among other recommendations, we especially point out a need for providing meaningful action against disinformation and call for improved citizen participation in discussions on this key subject. Furthermore, the European Commission shall enhance accessibility of platforms that allow citizens’ consultations on the EU level. Advanced AI tools to detect and counter disinformation and to cross-reference information with verified facts shall be supported and enhance for an effective use. Finally, protection of journalists, and freedom of speech in general, are crucial to sustain the resilience of European democratic systems.
The European Parliament equally recognised the utmost urgency of the issue of hybrid threats by setting up a Special committee on the European Democracy Shield. The latter shall help to raise awareness about the problem and provide high-level responses to efficiently tackle the issue from the legislative and regulatory point of view.