Disinformation and democracy

Can democracies still function when truth itself is destabilised – and what will it take to restore public trust? Around the world, democracies are being outpaced by a rapidly evolving information crisis. AI-generated deepfakes, automated propaganda, and weaponised synthetic media are now flooding public discourse faster than institutions can respond. What the world is witnessing is a runaway surge of falsehoods, which is turbo-charging a deeper collapse in our democratic capacity to verify what’s real, deliberate together, and hold power to account. At this pivotal moment, Eliot Higgins , founder of Bellingcat , is bringing forward a new framework for understanding and repairing the deeper democratic fractures beneath the disinformation crisis. This event marks the first public discussion of that work. Eliot is joined by award- winning investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr – campaigner for a free and accountable press – for a timely discussion in collaboration with Media Revolution campaigners and early adopters of the Bellingcat ARC framework. Together they will examine how AI is supercharging already established disinformation networks – and what new civic, investigative, and institutional infrastructures are needed to rebuild shared reality. Speakers: Eliot Higgins , Founder, Bellingcat Carole Cadwalladr , Investigative Journalist Chair: Liz Pendleton , Co-Founder, Media Revolution Donate to the RSA: Become an RSA Events sponsor: Follow RSA on Instagram: Like RSA on Facebook: Listen to RSA Events podcasts: Join our Fellowship:

You can listen to Disinformation and democracy online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Disinformation and democracy is an episode from RSA Events by RSA Events.

This episode is 01:03:39 long.

This episode was published on Feb 27, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from RSA Events when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.