Goran Buldioski has joined our Board! 🙌 Goran brings ample leadership experience from his time at the @open-society.bsky.social. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the @hertieschool.bsky.social. We are confident that Goran will help us advance DRI’s mission. Welcome! 🔗 bit.ly/3TY7uYX

We identified a network of 19 inauthentic #Telegram channels posing as independent news outlets. No newsroom. No editorial process. Just automated posting, purchased subscribers, and amplification of Kremlin-aligned disinformation. What does this say about the EU's regulation of Telegram? 👇

A World Cup referee gave USA's Folarin Balogun a red card. This is an automatic one-match ban. Then Trump called FIFA president Gianni Infantino. FIFA broke its own rules to please the U.S. president, and Balogun played the next game anyway. There's a name for this in authoritarian states… 👇

Civil society is a key pillar of democracy. But in some cases, civil society can undermine the very system it upholds. As legislative bodies move to regulate civil society, our new project will assess whether regulation is necessary and, if so, the form it should take. Read more: bit.ly/4vlvlia

Ensuring Ukrainian youth are active participants in public life 👏 DRI and Ukraine's Ministry of Youth and Sports signed a Memorandum at #URC2026 in Gdansk to strengthen youth leadership and democratic recovery.

❌ Member States are openly ignoring CJEU and ECtHR rulings, and the report doesn't fully cover this. Our work with EIN shows that this is one of the continent's most urgent rule of law crises. It's time that Member States face some accountability for ignoring rulings!

Decentralised social media networks 🤔 What are they exactly? How are they different from other platforms? And could they be part of the answer to disinformation? Hear from @aaron.bsky.team, @bsky.app's Head of Trust and Safety, who joined us at #DisinfoCon2025

The EU is developing guidance on AI use in elections. Here's what we told them ✍🏽 We submitted input to the European Commission's targeted stakeholder consultation under the European Democracy Shield, drawing on our research across 2024 European Parliament, 2025 German and 2026 Hungarian elections.

Ukraine's democratic institutions are still standing. But three years of full-scale war are placing a growing strain on checks and balances, political pluralism, and accountability. We conducted our 2025 assessment, "Ukrainian Democratic Institutions During Wartime". Some key takeaways 👇

We found a coordinated Serbian network of inauthentic accounts on X 🔍 We identified 337 of such accounts, all working to boost content supporting Orbán and Fidesz. Here's what we found and why we suspect the accounts are inauthentic 👇🏽

Potatoes for votes? 🥔 AI-generated videos in the 2026 Hungarian election mocked voters as rural women trading votes for sacks; among other damaging tropes. We identified 22 accounts, 2,043 vids, 53.6M views. 1/3 of them unlabeled, despite TikTok's AI labelling rules. @stiftungmercator.bsky.social

⚖️🇪🇺 Rule of law expert and keen on EU finances? We are seeking a consultant to analyse rule-of-law conditionality in the next EU Multiannual Financial Framework to understand how the EU embeds rule-of-law standards across the post-2027 budget. More info & application instructions: 🔗 bit.ly/4v3ZJho

Discussing the findings will be experts, including: 🎙️ Viktoriia Melnyk (CPLR) 🎙️ Tetiana Pechonchyk (ZMINA Human Rights Centre) 🎙️ Dr Marcin Walecki (University of Oxford) 🎙️ Martin Mühleck (European Commission) 🎙️ Oleksandr Iakymenko (DRI) 🎙️ Paul Zoubkov (DRI).

Happening in two hours 📣 We're launching DRI’s latest Ukraine’s Democracy During Wartime assessment! 🇺🇦 The report draws on input from 60+ Ukrainian experts across government, parliament, judiciary, and civil society. Join the conversation 👉 bit.ly/42FlTKX

We're launching DRI’s latest Ukraine’s Democracy During Wartime assessment! 🇺🇦 📅 May 26, 2026 🕓 16:00 - 17:15 CEST The report draws on input from 60+ Ukrainian experts across government, parliament, judiciary, and civil society. Join the conversation 👉 bit.ly/42FlTKX

Hack the Hate, Renew Democracy 👩🏽‍💻 Registrations are open for the Democracy Hackathon in Strasbourg (17–19 June) alongside #NoHateSpeechWeek, with 80 participants from 46 countries building tech solutions to fight online hate. Apply now: democracyhackathon.coe.int

Platforms do have policies but they’re lagging behind.

Platforms are failing the AI governance test 🚨 Examples from recent elections: 🇭🇺 An official account shared AI visuals portraying a rival as a Ukrainian puppet 🇮🇹 Disturbing, nationalistic AI-generated visuals were used in campaign content

Can you dismantle a system without becoming what you set out to replace? That is the challenge facing Péter Magyar in Hungary. On paper, the numbers are clear. Tisza holds a two- thirds majority in parliament. Enough to rewrite the constitution. In reality, it is not that simple👇

Hungary handed Magyar & Tisza a historic victory & now the real work begins! 👉How can a new government restore trust & reform a system stacked against it? 👉What does this mean for the EU’s #Ruleoflaw agenda? Register for our webinar & join the discussion: bit.ly/3Orir2O 📆Wed 15 April ⏰11:00 CEST

Hungary votes this Sunday. Three parties, each with a starkly different vision for the country's future. Edit Zgut-Przybylska helped us analyse party programmes, compare positions across five key areas, and outline possible scenarios after the election. 👇

Learn more, in this op-ed from @meyer-resende.bsky.social: bit.ly/4bHVb8C

Those who understand foreign policy only as hard power overlook how much states benefit from rules – especially middle powers like Germany.

Inside the 4th Rule of Law Clinic in Helsinki 🇫🇮🇺🇦 Last week, we brought together Ukrainian justice professionals and Finnish experts to explore mediation and ADR in practice, to help strengthen access to justice and ease court burdens in Ukraine.

1/8 Marriage in Berlin is marriage in Warsaw. Last November, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled: member states must recognise same-sex marriages 🏳️‍🌈lawfully concluded in another EU country. Here's the story behind that ruling⤵️

Ukraine resists 💪 As we enter the fifth year of Russia's full-scale invasion, it resists thanks to: -The bravery of its people -The strength of its institutions -The resilience of Ukrainian democracy We're proud to play a small part in that. Here's what we've been doing 👇

Are you an expert on Hungarian politics & the #RuleOfLaw? We are looking for a short-term consultant to analyse the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary elections! 📍Remote / 10 days (with possible extension) 📅During March – April 2026 📝Deadline to apply is 1st of March Read more: bit.ly/3MPWbPo

450+ alerts, one urgent question: how can we protect civil society? Just a few days to go until our #EUSEE webinar on turning data into action! Join us on Feb 26 👉 bit.ly/4rYUoX8 @hivos.bsky.social @forusinternational.bsky.social @anticorruption.bsky.social @epd.eu @civicusalliance.bsky.social

A big win for online transparency and platform accountability! The Berlin Court of Appeals has ruled that X must give us access to the research data we need to study information manipulation during Hungary's April elections.

You work at a civil society organisation. You do your job well. You have a quiet life. And one day, your name shows up in a politically charged U.S. Senate report on the EU's approach to digital regulation. 👇