[Commlist] One day conference: Disinformation effects on minority and minoritized languages

DISINFORMATION EFFECTS ON MINORITY AND MINORITIZED LANGUAGES: Diagnosing 
the Problem, Identifying Solutions, Creating Knowledge Networks

When: July 1st, 2024
Where: UPF Barcelona School of Management Koiné Room (& online) Carrer 
de Balmes 132, 08008, Barcelona, Spain

This is a free event open to the public, but registration is required.  
This will be a hybrid event, in-person and online participation is 
possible. Please indicate whether you would be participating in person 
or online during registration.

Register through this link: https://forms.gle/4iotYDmysuB7VULm7 
<https://forms.gle/4iotYDmysuB7VULm7>

CONTEXT There is a growing body of evidence that mis and dis-information 
narratives that come both from foreign manipulation and interference 
campaigns and from local actors spread in minority and minoritized 
languages, or languages other than the main language spoken in any given 
country, languages that sometimes can be marginalized, persecuted, or 
even banned. In those cases, there is either less awareness and less 
capabilities to coordinate a response (or both) from authorities, 
international organizations, civil society, and tech companies. In the 
case of the later, it has been proven that content moderation in 
minority and minoritized languages receives less attention -sometimes 
inattention- and less resources, which leads to struggles in responding 
adequately to organized interference efforts on platforms when they are 
not distributed in majority languages.

  Amongst NATO members, all 31 have a majority language, and these 
include some of the most widely spoken languages in the world, including 
Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French, with these last two being the 
official languages of the organization. However, there are also myriad 
other languages. Just to cite a few examples: in Spain, there is also 
Euskera, Català or Galego; in France, Occitan, Breton, Basque, Corsican, 
Alsatian and others; Turkey also has Caucasian, Kurdish, Greek or 
Armenian; Denmark has Faroese or Greenlandic; Bulgaria has Romani or 
Russian; Estonia also has a large population that speaks Russian; the UK 
has Gaelic, Irish or Welsh. In countries with large communities of 
migrants, such as the United States, the common language is English and 
other native languages are present but large communities of migrants 
speak other languages that, while not strictly minority languages in a 
general sense, become minority or minoritized languages in the context 
of countries such as the United States. Examples include Spanish, Hindi 
or Mandarin, among others.

Main Objective and Approach
Through kind support from a NATO CO-SPONSORSHIP GRANT FOR PUBLIC 
DIPLOMACY PROJECTS and the support of the UPF BARCELONA SCHOOL OF 
MANAGEMENT, this event seeks to explore the effects of interference 
efforts through coordinated disinformation campaigns and aims to 
determine the types of responses that institutions, the press and civil 
society organizations can articulate to counter information manipulation 
and interference operations in minority or minoritized languages.

Through a series of panels and work meetings this event wants to give 
voice to several stakeholders exploring the problem of mis and 
dis-information in minority and minoritized languages. The event aims to 
create spaces for interinstitutional and interorganizational dialogue so 
that different parties understand the problem from the other’s 
perspective and so that together, they can explore comprehensive 
solutions to help tackle the problem. Ultimately, this event aims to 
kickstart a network of institutional representatives, civil society 
organizations, the press, and academics that study issues around 
information manipulation and interference in minority and minoritized 
languages to foster more research around the topic and give a forum to 
exchange knowledge and experiences around issues related to mis and 
dis-information.

Format of the Sessions
The event will be built around a keynote and two panels focusing on 
specific topics related to mis and dis-information and minority and 
minoritized languages. Each of the panels will count with the 
participation of invited experts that will give context to the specific 
issues to be discussed during each one of them. Following the panels, 
all participants will be invited to join work sessions focusing, 
generally, on each of the topics established in panels which will frame 
the work sessions and trigger the discussion around each topic, which 
will be facilitated by a moderator.

During work sessions all participants will be invited to briefly share a 
bit about the work they do around studying and/or countering 
disinformation and/or working with minority languages and a facilitator 
will include subtopics for discussion to gather opinions, perspectives, 
and proposals for solutions. The work sessions will follow the Chatham 
house rule but minutes of what is discussed will be collected and 
distributed among the participants. If you work with disinformation 
and/or minority or minoritized languages and would like to share your 
project or work, please let us know during registration.

  Work-session participants: All attendees are welcome to participate. 
Participants must pre-register for the work sessions and participants 
willing to present a case study may indicate so, along with a brief 
description, upon registering.

Ways forward:  At the end of work sessions, moderators will summarize 
all issues addressed during the panel and work session discussion and 
present the key elements of the discussion as takeaways from the sessions.

Networking: During the event we will have coffee breaks and lunch as 
opportunities for networking, providing spaces for relaxed conversations 
and to encourage participants to establish connections that may lead to 
future work on the issues discussed during the event. Organizers will 
also announce upcoming initiatives such as opportunities for academic 
research publication, available materials as part of the NATO project 
and an upcoming event in the Fall of 2024.

AGENDA;
9:45am Registration and welcome

10:00am Opening keynote Carmen Romero, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary 
General for Public Diplomacy

10:30am Panel 1 Institutional and organizational cooperation in response 
to mis and disinformation.
Iván Monforte (Catalan Cybersecurity Agency) Bea Marin (EU External 
Action Service) Pilar Velasco (Demócrata.es) Enzo Panizio (EDMO/Pagella 
Politica)

12:00pm Coffee break

12:30pm Work Session 1 Effective tools to protect institutions and 
collectives against mis and disinformation Case study: Disinformation, 
factchecking and recent electoral processes. Catalina Gaete. Universidad 
Complutense de Madrid

1:30pm Lunch

3:30PM Panel 2 Multilingualism, minority and minoritized languages and 
disinformation. Toni Aira (UPF Barcelona School of Management) Òscar 
Escuder (Plataforma per la Llengua) Daniel Basteiro (Infolibre)

5:00PM Work Session 2 Inclusion of minority and minoritized languages in 
the fight against mis and disinformation Case study: TBC

6:00PM Closing remarks Presentation of upcoming initiatives linked to 
the project Rodrigo Cetina Presuel (Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean 
for Education and Academic Affairs, UPF Barcelona School of Management)

Contact information: Rodrigo Cetina Presuel, Senior Lecturer in Law and 
Public Policy, UPF Barcelona School of Management: 
(rodrigo.cetina /at/ bsm.upf.edu) <mailto:(rodrigo.cetina /at/ bsm.upf.edu)>


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