Marika Barbieri-Antonoglou recently graduated from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Political Science and a minor in Conflict Studies and Human Rights. She will be pursuing a Master’s degree in Political Science, focusing on democratic backsliding in the United States under Donald Trump. Her research interests centre on the growing role that technology and artificial intelligence play in shaping political systems, with a particular focus on how digital technologies influence democratic resilience, governance, and public trust. She is especially interested in how AI, information ecosystems, and emerging technologies are becoming defining forces in global politics, raising urgent questions about accountability, power, and the future of democracy.
What happens when fake news looks almost identical to the real thing? This article highlights how Russia’s Doppelganger disinformation campaigns use cloned news websites to make disinformation appear credible and familiar. Focusing on the 2024 European Parliament elections as a case study, it shows how these campaigns exploit existing concerns such as immigration, economic insecurity, and support for Ukraine to amplify divisions within Europe. More broadly, it considers how these tactics could shape future elections, influence public debate, and make collective action across the European Union and NATO more difficult.
As social media becomes the primary source of political information for younger generations, Russian disinformation campaigns increasingly exploit digital platforms to undermine trust, fuel polarization, and discourage democratic participation. By examining today’s younger generation as a strategic target of information warfare, this article explores how disinformation has evolved into a growing challenge for democratic resilience and NATO’s collective security.
As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in modern warfare, it is reshaping how states conduct war and raising urgent questions of ethics and accountability regarding the potential absence of human judgment in lethal decisions. If machines can decide when force is used, who ultimately remains accountable for the decision to take a human life in war?
