Commercial Innovation Opportunities for Civic Tech to Reduce Misinformation: "Thinking outside the bunk"

RESIST

Strengthening Societal Resilience to Disinformation in Europe

Misinformation responses need architecture. Fragmented initiatives will not be enough. If disinformation moves across sectors, communities and media environments, then the response must also be cross-sectoral, sustained and strategically coordinated.

RESIST is a Council of Europe project designed to strengthen societal resilience to mis/disinformation across Europe. It starts from the premise that disinformation is not only a problem of false or misleading content but also a broader challenge to democracy, public trust and information integrity. The project supports countries in identifying vulnerabilities to mis/disinformation and in strengthening the policy conditions that shape how societies respond to it. Its work spans media, education, youth, culture, and civil society, and includes support for developing national resilience strategies.

RESIST instead points to the need for coordination among public authorities, media professionals, educators, youth organisations, civil society actors and cultural institutions. This makes the case a useful example of how disinformation can be approached through a national strategy: one that aligns sectors, closes policy gaps and builds shared democratic capacity.

The challenge is that RESIST mainly operates at the regulatory and policy level. It helps define the strategic frame, but complementary innovation is required to support the everyday public sphere where people encounter, interpret and share contested information. That is the opening for next-generation civic tech: tools that go beyond general literacy programmes and debunking to help materialise more comprehensive approaches, such as supporting trusted intermediaries, community dialogue, social listening, local translation of information, and collective sense-making.