At first glance, the single word “Прямий” seems too small to summarize. In Ukrainian, it means “direct,” “straight,” “frank,” and “live” — as in a live broadcast. It is a name that promises no filters, no endless preambles, no polite hiding places. It suggests a person who looks you in the eye and tells you what they have seen, not a machine that spins information into something safer. In a time when the world seems full of edited realities, manipulated feeds, and carefully worded statements, that promise is unexpectedly human. The story of the Ukrainian channel “Прямий” begins with this…

Behind the official reports and policy briefs about disinformation, there is a quieter story: the people actually tasked with fighting it are often unseen, understudied, and caught between competing pressures. In France, a team of researchers set out to change that by surveying 106 practitioners working across the military, government, regulatory bodies, civil society, and the media. These are not academic researchers writing papers from a distance; they are the civil servants, intelligence officers, regulators, and specialist journalists who decide what to monitor, when to intervene, and how to protect democratic institutions from harmful falsehoods. What emerges from this survey…