Combating Disinformation: Advancing Research Frameworks and Defense Strategies

French military and cybersecurity experts have launched a groundbreaking collaborative initiative to combat the rising threat of information manipulation, bringing together diverse stakeholders from across government, industry, academia, and civil society for the first time.

The series of workshops addressed four critical questions: how manipulated information is generated, what factors drive its viral spread, how to respond effectively without amplifying false content, and how to strengthen societal resilience against disinformation campaigns.

“Up until now, action on this issue has been confined to certain limited ecosystems – academic, institutional, industrial and associative. Here though, we’ve managed to create a link between these different ecosystems with the long-term involvement of 250 experts working for the common good,” explained Nicolas Porquet, one of the initiative’s coordinators.

Each workshop gathered approximately 100 participants, including scientists, military personnel, industry representatives, journalists, and government officials. This diverse mix created a unique environment for cross-sector collaboration on what remains a complex and often controversial topic.

Digital services giant Sopra Steria played a key role in the working group focused on propagation and virality mechanisms. General Bruno Courtois, the company’s defense advisor, highlighted the value of integrating academic research into practical applications: “These workshops gave us access to research input that had largely been previously absent from our ecosystem. This means we can avoid duplicating identical actions and progress more quickly working together.”

The French military sees significant potential in this collaborative model. According to General Meunier, “Research can help us characterise threats involving emerging technologies in the same way as it already does with AI and biotechnology.” The defense establishment increasingly views information manipulation as a strategic threat requiring coordinated response capabilities across multiple domains.

The workshops represent an important first step in establishing a formal scientific approach to information manipulation, a field that remains relatively underdeveloped compared to other security disciplines. Porquet emphasized that “High-level multidisciplinary fundamental research that will drive innovation needs to be developed, structured and supported. The development of tools requires understanding of the current threats, but academic expertise also needs to be developed to respond to future challenges.”

Participants acknowledged that understanding information manipulation today is comparable to where cybersecurity was a decade ago – still in its early stages of development as a formal discipline. “Today, we’ve got to anticipate and organize ourselves,” noted General Courtois, pointing to the rapidly evolving nature of information threats.

The challenge is growing increasingly complex as technological advances enable more sophisticated manipulation techniques. Generative AI technologies now allow for the industrial-scale production of misleading content that appears credible to casual observers. These more targeted, subtle information operations often prove difficult to detect through conventional means.

This initiative comes at a critical moment when democracies worldwide face unprecedented challenges from both state and non-state actors seeking to exploit information vulnerabilities. European officials have grown increasingly concerned about the strategic use of disinformation campaigns targeting elections, public health initiatives, and social cohesion.

Porquet stressed the delicate balance required in developing effective countermeasures: “We need to create an environment that’s conducive to reliable information while also guaranteeing freedom of expression.” This tension between promoting information integrity and preserving free speech rights remains one of the central challenges facing democratic societies in the digital age.

The collaborative model established through these workshops may serve as a template for similar initiatives in other countries grappling with information manipulation threats. By bringing together expertise from across society rather than treating disinformation as solely a government, military, or tech industry problem, France is pioneering a more comprehensive approach to information resilience.