After SIIF 2025: the importance and vulnerabilities of information integrity were discussed at the Institut français de Bulgarie

A month after the 2025 Sofia Information Integrity Forum took place at the GATE Institute, the conversation about the critical need to strengthen – through greater support and visibility for fact-checkers and fact-checking organizations, the investigation and exposure of the various techniques and scale of external and internal interference through information manipulation, and highlighting and explaining the cultural aspects of media literacy – continued at an event organized by the French Embassy and the French Institute in Sofia.

In her opening speech, Her Excellency the Ambassador of France, Ms. Marie Dumoulin, recalled that disinformation today acts like a virus that weakens our societies by damaging the information environment dominated by social networks and facilitating external interference, especially from Russia.

She stressed the need for a three-pronged response: detection (e.g. the French government Service de vigilance et de protection contre les ingérences numériques étrangères, VIGINUM), platform regulation (the EU's Digital Services Act), and media literacy.

Nikola Miladinov, Head of the Media and Press Department at the EC Representation, emphasized that the EU has just launched its large-scale European Democracy Shield program, which places the preservation of an independent and sustainable media and information ecosystem at the center of its priorities and provides crucial support through the AgoraEU program. 

Representatives of three of the BROD's partnering organization – Maya Dimitrova (investigative journalist and fact-checker at the Bulgarian National Television); Rosen Boshev (journalist with AFP's European digital investigations team), and Iglika Ivanova (researcher at GATE Institute and lecturer at Sofia University), and Ruslan Trad (global security expert at DFRLab), presented diverse perspectives, quantitative indicators and thought-provoking insights in the panel discussion, moderated by Tony Nikolov – political scientist, journalist, and editor-in-chief of Portal Culture.

The discussion, followed by Q&A, showed the scale, scope, dimensions and implications of the phenomenon and emphasized the need for coordinated action between media, institutions, and researchers.

This event was part of the regional project "Strengthening Democratic Media in the Black Sea Region," implemented jointly with AFP and supported by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, coordinated by the audiovisual attaché for the region Ségolène de Calan, based in Bucharest.

Learn more about: 
The fact-check strand of the Bulgarian-Romanian Digital Media Observatory
The media literacy strand of the Bulgarian-Romanian Digital Media Observatory
The BROD's research publications
The BNT produced documentary Architects of Chaos