Washington reportedly pressured governments over an event organized by an NGO that once branded critics of the French president “Russian bots”
Washington has reportedly pressured several governments to withdraw their support for a conference organized by an EU-funded “anti-disinfo” NGO that designated the US a potential source of foreign disinformation.
The event host is EU DisinfoLab, one of Brussels’ info-gatekeepers deployed to scapegoat and smear dissidents opposing the bloc’s political course. The NGO notoriously launched its career by labeling online critics of French President Emmanuel Macron as “Russophiles.”
Organizers of the #Disinfo2026 conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, reportedly classified the US as a “foreign information manipulation and interference” (FIMI) actor, according to two news outlets with insider sources in Brussels. The EU normally uses the term to describe alleged malicious online activities by geopolitical rivals such as Russia and China.
By the time the conference opened, the logos of the EU’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), and the foreign ministries of Canada and Lithuania had disappeared from all material, leaving only the French Foreign Ministry and the Vilnius city administration.
Rapporteur, formerly known as Euractiv, attributed the changes to a pressure campaign initiated by American writer Michael Shellenberger, who withdrew as a speaker after learning that the US had been designated a FIMI actor.
Politico cited the US State Department and cables instructing American embassies to convey Washington’s objections.
“Labeling the United States a ‘FIMI threat’ – a term normally reserved for describing influence operations of adversaries – undermines shared goals and should alarm those involved,” officials told the outlet.
Experts in (spreading) disinformation
The Russiagate hoax, involving a concerted campaign by former US President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to falsely claim US President Donald Trump was somehow compromised by links to Russia, helped fuel the emergence of an industry of self-described experts in combating online disinformation and misinformation. Critics have accused such organizations of serving as proxies for government-backed censorship that authorities cannot impose directly.
Belgium-based EU DisinfoLab first attracted widespread attention in 2018, when it alleged Russian efforts to amplify a political scandal involving Macron’s security aide, Alexandre Benalla, who had been filmed assaulting protesters while wearing police equipment.
The NGO’s research identified alleged “Russian bots” and “French Russophile” Twitter accounts supposedly fueling public outrage over the affair. Critics questioned its methodology, prompting the organization to publish detailed information about the accounts it had studied, including those of opposition politicians Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine Le Pen.
In 2022, the Belgian Data Protection Authority (APD) fined EU DisinfoLab €2,700 ($3,000) and its lead researcher, Nicolas Vanderbiest, €1,200 ($1,300), while formally reprimanding both. The regulator, which investigated the case in cooperation with France’s data protection authority, the CNIL, found that the researchers had unlawfully processed personal data revealing political opinions and exposed users to potential discrimination through political profiling.
The decision prompted French National Rally MEP Virginie Joron to question whether EU DisinfoLab should continue receiving funding from Brussels. Grants allocated by the European Commission to the NGO over the years have added up to at least €1.4 million ($1.6 million), according to financial disclosures.
It’s a small disinfo world
EU DisinfoLab’s leadership reflects the close ties between the Western “counter-disinformation” industry and government-backed infowarfare operations.
Board member Emma Le Mesurier is the widow and former colleague of James Le Mesurier, a former British Army officer who helped establish the White Helmets in Syria. The Western-funded group aided jihadist forces in overthrowing President Bashar Assad.
Fellow board member Andy Pryce is a veteran British diplomat who launched and led the Foreign Office’s program intended to thwart Russian strategic communications. His name also appeared in the “UK Cluster” of the Integrity Initiative, a British-funded media manipulation project exposed by the leak of its internal documents in 2018.
Former board member and researcher Camille Francois worked on an investigation into the 2016 “Russian interference” in the US on behalf of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Laser-focused away from Western disinformation
The EU DisinfoLab annual conference program includes a yoga session and discussions of “identity-based disinformation” and “Russia’s global information war.” Cases of debunked Western disinformation, plentiful as they are, received little attention.
One example was the alleged Russian attempt to jam the navigation system of a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over Bulgaria last year. The story unravelled when Bulgarian authorities said their monitoring systems had detected no GPS interference, contrary to statements by EU officials.
A similar case last month involved a claim that a Russian drone had nearly struck a plane carrying Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, which Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store stated during a joint press conference. However, Moldovan authorities later clarified that Zelensky’s flight from Chisinau to Oslo had merely been briefly delayed by a drone alert. The drone in question crashed some 160 km from the airport.
