Imagine a researcher who has spent years tracking foreign influence campaigns, building databases of suspicious accounts, testifying before parliaments, and warning the public about the dangers of manipulated information. For most of the last decade, that person would have been focused on Moscow, Beijing, or Tehran. But this week, in a hotel conference hall in Vilnius, Lithuania, the spotlight turned in a startling new direction: toward Washington. At a two-day gathering called Disinfo 2026, hosted by the EU-funded nongovernmental organization EU Disinfolab, the United States government was not just criticized on policy grounds. It was framed as an active source of disinformation in other countries, a foreign threat that Europe must now prepare to counter. The European Union and France, according to the event’s own materials and reporting around it, provided financial backing for this event. That support has created an uncomfortable paradox: European institutions that have spent years building defenses against foreign information manipulation are now helping to fund a conference that openly treats their most important military and political ally as the enemy in the information space. For anyone who remembers the early days of the transatlantic partnership, when American and European officials stood shoulder to shoulder against Soviet propaganda, the scene in Vilnius would have felt almost surreal.
The most striking panel at the conference posed a question that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Its title asked: “How did the United States become a Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference threat for Europe?” That phrase, Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, or FIMI, is a term usually reserved for hostile state actors like Russia, which is widely accused of using fake accounts, bot networks, and manipulated media to undermine European democracies. To place the United States in that category is a dramatic rhetorical move, and the conference did not shrink from it. The panel description acknowledged that this was an uncomfortable question, but then doubled down, promising to explore how the counter-disinformation community could “rebuild resilience without Washington,” what solidarity could look like “in a fractured transatlantic environment,” and how to “push back against these operations.” The panel even featured a former member of the United States Central Intelligence Agency as a speaker, lending an air of inside knowledge to the proceedings. For the researchers, activists, and officials in the audience, the message was clear: the era of automatically trusting American leadership in the fight against disinformation is over. Europe, they were being told, must learn to defend itself not only from traditional adversaries, but also from the very country that once helped build the international infrastructure for exposing hostile influence operations. Whether or not one agrees with that framing, the fact that it was central to a major European conference marks a profound shift in how some influential parts of the continent now view their American partner.
Another panel went even further, accusing the United States government of actively trying to intimidate the very people who work in the disinformation research space. Its description claimed that the U.S. government’s “attacks to intimidate individuals and organisations are an unprecedented escalation in defense of US corporations seeking to avoid regulation and criticism.” That phrase tied the alleged intimidation directly to American technology companies, suggesting that Washington is using its power to shield corporate interests from European regulators and public scrutiny. The panel went on to examine the “chilling effect” these tactics could have on “the community of researchers, journalists, and former government officials who fight disinformation, propaganda and hate speech online.” It also promised to discuss how some of those targeted individuals are fighting back. The framing was not academic. It was deeply personal. For people who have spent their careers investigating state-funded troll farms, covert influence networks, and disinformation campaigns run by foreign governments, being told that their own work might now make them targets of pressure from the United States is disorienting. Many in that community have long relied on American research, American platforms, and American funding. The idea that Washington would now turn its legal and political machinery against them feels, to many of them, like a betrayal. The panel offered a space to process that fear, but also to strategize about resistance. It described a defensive battle, a struggle to preserve the independence of the disinformation research field from what it called an unprecedented and dangerous escalation by the U.S. government.
None of this happened in a vacuum. The conference organizers had originally listed a broad array of official backers, including the French government, the Canadian government, the Lithuanian government, and the European Commission’s foreign affairs branch, the European External Action Service. That list of supporters reportedly triggered complaints from American government officials, who were alarmed that European taxpayers were funding an event whose panels portrayed the United States as a threat to democracy. In response, Canada, Lithuania, and the European Commission pulled their names from the event, with officials claiming that they were not aware the organizers intended to host such panels. But France refused to disavow the conference. One unnamed Paris official told The Guardian that “there’s absolutely no reason for France to change its commitments.” That refusal is significant. France has long positioned itself as the European country most willing to assert strategic autonomy from the United States, particularly in matters of digital regulation and tech policy. By keeping its association with the event, Paris sent a message that it does not consider criticism of the United States to be a taboo in the transatlantic relationship. Meanwhile, European Union officials confirmed that although Brussels had ordered its branding to be removed from the event, it would still provide the EU Disinfolab NGO with the funding necessary to host it. The non-profit’s EU transparency register listing reveals that it received €214,986 of its €959,735 budget for 2025 directly from EU institutions, with another €229,779 coming from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. Canadian officials also reportedly refused to withdraw their support, despite protests from Washington. In other words, the visible logos may have been taken down, but the money remained.
This conference is best understood as the latest flashpoint in Europe’s growing war on American tech companies and on what many European officials see as the dangerously permissive American approach to free speech. Multiple senior French and Brussels officials have increasingly pushed for a punitive approach to U.S. firms, ranging from hefty fines for failure to remove harmful content, to new digital taxes, to aggressive regulations aimed at forcing American platforms to rewrite their business models. The intellectual justification for this push often leans on the language of protecting democracy, public health, and national security. But critics argue that it is also about control: control over the online ecosystem, control over public discourse, and control over the flow of information in societies that are uncomfortable with the messy, chaotic nature of untrammeled expression. The Disinfo 2026 conference, with its portrayal of the United States as a disinformation threat, fits neatly into that broader narrative. If the United States itself is seen as a source of dangerous information, then it becomes easier for European politicians to justify tough measures against American platforms, to restrict cross-border data flows, and to build new institutions for monitoring and shaping what citizens can say and read. The involvement of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation in funding the EU Disinfolab adds another layer to the story. Soros has long been a favorite target of right-wing conspiracy theories, but his foundations have also backed many pro-democracy initiatives around the world. The conference’s funding mix, a combination of EU public money and private liberal philanthropies, shows that the push against American influence is not coming from any single ideological camp. It is a broader movement, rooted in European anxiety about cultural and technological dependence on the United States.
For the human beings caught in the middle of this growing fracture, the stakes are not abstract. Researchers who track disinformation now worry that their work could make them targets of lawsuits, subpoenas, or political pressure from Washington. Journalists who cover the topic face similar risks. And ordinary citizens on both sides of the Atlantic are left to wonder who is actually telling them the truth. When the United States says it is defending free speech, some Europeans hear a defense of harmful lies. When Europe says it is fighting disinformation, some Americans hear an attack on the First Amendment. Events like Disinfo 2026 do not resolve that tension. They deepen it. The conference may have been a niche gathering, attended by specialists and funded by obscure grants, but it reflects a much larger realignment. The transatlantic alliance, which once seemed to rest on shared democratic values, is now struggling with a fundamental disagreement over the meaning of information, truth, and legitimate political influence. The question posed by that conference panel, how did the United States become a threat to Europe, is one that would have seemed absurd a generation ago. But it is being asked seriously, in European capitals, by people with access to power and money. Whether the answer leads to a wiser, more independent Europe or to a poisonous and self-defeating hostility toward the United States will depend on the choices made in the coming years. For now, the image of European-funded researchers gathered in Vilnius to study Washington as a disinformation threat stands as a symbol of how far the old Atlantic order has shifted, and how uncertain its future has become.