GLOBSEC Joins EU-Backed Project to Establish a Bulgarian-Romanian Hub to Combat Disinformation (BROD)
Bratislava, Slovakia - GLOBSEC joins a new EU-funded project aimed at creating a regional hub for detecting, analyzing, and combating disinformation in Bulgaria and Romania (BROD). The BROD hub will bring together multinational, multi-stakeholder, and multidisciplinary expertise to offer locally adapted multilingual tools and capabilities for rapid detection and analysis of disinformation campaigns.
The project, once completed, will result in the establishment of a world-leading center for disinformation combat, offering unparalleled expertise in the field. The BROD hub will also contribute to the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) work, further strengthening the fight against disinformation in Europe.
The partners from Vitosha Research EOOD (Bulgaria) hosted a two-day kick-off meeting, where the partner organizations, including GLOBSEC, presented their expertise and their contribution to the project.
“For the first time, a structure is starting to be built in which anyone who has an interest in the topic of disinformation can join. These are media, academic institutions and technology companies, and people involved in media and information literacy education. The goal is to create a network for detecting and countering disinformation,” said Assoc. Prof. Milena Dobreva, head of research at BROD.
GLOBSEC will contribute to the project by analyzing and outlining the impact of disinformation on Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, especially the most vulnerable social strata in the two countries. This will aid participants in focusing their fact-checking efforts on the most prevalent narratives and point their messages towards the most susceptible parts of the populations.
As a side event to the project kick-off meeting, a roundtable was organized to discuss the 2022 European Commission’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, aimed at wider cooperation on solutions to the problem of disinformation and the involvement of technology companies at the backbone of digital media. The forum was opened by Prof. Mariya Stoycheva, Deputy Rector of Sofia University. The participants were welcomed by Blagovest Kirov, Deputy Minister of e-Government, Cvetan Kyulanov, Head of the EC Representation in Bulgaria, Dr Gabriela Naplatanova-Ruseva, member of Council for Electronic Media and Prof. Silvia Ilieva, director of the GATE Institute. They highlighted the importance of the topic of countering misinformation and congratulated GATE for the timely initiative.
The event brought together more than 50 participants, including a guest from GLOBSEC.
About GLOBSEC
GLOBSEC is a global think-tank based in Bratislava committed to enhancing democracy, security, prosperity and sustainability in Europe and throughout the world. It is an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental organization. Its mission is to influence the future by generating new ideas and solutions for a better and safer world. The annual GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum, one of the leading global security conferences, contributes to this mission. GLOBSEC also organizes the annual GLOBSEC Tatra Summit, a conference that provides the opportunity for experts to have fruitful political discussions on the future of Europe.