(Session co-organised with The Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) of the European Commission). This panel will examine the contested landscape of censorship and external interference within and originating from authoritarian contexts. It will explore how such regimes surveil and control their domestic audiences - often isolating their populations from the global internet - while simultaneously seeking to influence and penetrate open societies abroad.The discussion will take a twofold approach: first, analyzing how authoritarian regimes consolidate power through domestic repression and subsequently leverage that power for foreign manipulation and interference; and second, considering innovative tools that democracies can use to strengthen their own resilience and to project open information flows into closed environments, such as through virtual private networks (VPNs).Bringing together perspectives from diverse regions, governance models, and normative frameworks, the debate will also highlight the European Union’s ambition to champion a free and rights-based internet. Finally, it will assess whether the EU possesses the legitimacy to critique authoritarian practices abroad while maintaining internal coherence and consistency at home.
Presentedby
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