Stichting Bellingcat

Democracies are under threat around the world. But the task of investigating and documenting anti-democratic movements and tendencies, from various far-right forces and hateful influencers to conspiracy peddlers and cyberbullying misogynists, has been neglected. In previous projects, Bellingcat, in collaboration with the The Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation, has investigated and documented Central and Eastern European far-right movements and, with support from the EU, the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

To continue documenting and ultimately counteracting the advance of these anti-democratic movements, it is necessary to do more. Well-researched and impactful journalism, from short videos to longer investigative articles and collaborations, is of course a fundamental part of this. But there is also a greater need for education on how journalists, researchers and the general public can better understand and counter these movements. As well, there is a need to develop existing technology and methods to research, catalogue and monitor these movements, and to expand our horizons to better understand these various, contradictory and sometimes fleeting ideologies and movements.

In this project, Stichting Bellingcat aims to increase knowledge about anti-democratic movements online, how they operate, and highlight the danger these groups, individuals, and ideologies pose to democracy.

The project is supported with 3 410 000 SEK.

What’s happening in the project?

• In the previous project, a Dashboard was developed to filter various social media posts from different far-right movements. This project will update and develop these tools further.
• The number of movements under scrutiny will be expanded, this time including those in the USA.
• Lessons learned and successful methods will be disseminated to new actors.

Why is the project supported?

The project contributes to increasing knowledge about anti-democratic movements online, thereby improving the conditions to counteract the negative development of democracy.

Story

Interview with Eliot Higgins at Bellingcat

– “We’ve learned that debunking disinformation in real time, providing evidence-based reporting, and collaborating with...

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