Shining a light on Foreign State Information Influence at Disinfo2025

These opening remarks from Marko Rusjan, Slovenia’s State Secretary for the Ministry of Culture and Media, set the tone for a stellar conference for the global counter-disinformation community. The EU Disinfo Lab brought academic, government, civil society and industry experts together at Disinfo2025 in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 15-16 October to consider the most pressing issues and core threats, challenges, innovations and responses emerging in the counter-disinformation policy and practice space.

The packed programme featured a wealth of workshops and presentations, divided amongst four parallel tracks addressing regional trends, resilience building, digital platform accountability and regulation, and emerging significant challenges.

The diversity of the topics addressed was impressive, as was the range of organisations, countries and regions represented. The wide-ranging practice, policy and research angles presented effectively conveyed the scale of the challenges. However, there was also the space for positivity about progress made and a clear sense of cohesion in the commitment to a solution-oriented approach to facing the challenges ahead.

Over the next two years the different work streams on the IMITATE3 project will collectively offer nuanced insights and evidence on the impact that foreign state information influence operations have on public opinion and policy decisions. In support of this, the Disinfo 2025 conference provided a valuable early opportunity to build connections with other key organisations, practitioners, and policymakers in this field. The IMITATE3 team look forward to further engaging with and contributing to the discussion at future iterations of the EU Disinfo Lab’s Disinfo conference series.