CSLS’s InfoLead Programme Launches Seminar Series for Senior Policymakers and Legal Professionals

The Information and Media Leadership Programme for Legal Professionals and Policymakers (InfoLead) recently launched its Online Seminar Series – a recurring event for senior policymakers and legal professionals to discuss challenges, strategies and opportunities, in confronting emerging technologies.

Supported by the European Media and Information Fund, these regular, informal spaces are an opportunity for current and former InfoLead participants to collectively trouble-shoot challenges in real-time, share strategies for improving policy and practice responses to tech-facilitated risks, and offer best practices developed in their own organisational and/or national contexts.

In the context of rapidly evolving technologies and shared transboundary challenges, this series emerges from the belief that resilience to crises can be built through collaboration across sectors and borders among senior policymakers, legal professionals, as well as journalists and civil society. CSLS has run two seminars thus far, one focused on elections, disinformation & the role of civil society and another on protecting victims of tech-facilitated abuse.

Elections, disinformation & the role of civil society 

The first of these online seminars took place in mid-June 2025 and focused on the role of civil society in electoral contexts affected by foreign interference and disinformation. Shortly after Romania’s presidential elections, the panel welcomed speakers -- Cezara Grama, Bogdan Manolea, and Attila Biro -- from Romanian civil society organisations that had been actively working to safeguard democratic processes in a context of foreign interference.

Cezara Grama is a rule of law expert and consultant, working with the World Bank Group and Expert Forum, a think tank based in Bucharest and with expertise in promoting active citizenry, and fighting fake news and disinformation. Cezara discussed challenges and ways forward in monitoring elections and promoting citizen engagement around elections and democratic processes.

Bogdan Manolea is the Executive Director of Association for Technology and Internet - ApTI, the only digital rights organization in Romania. With over 20 years of experience working in the intersection of technology and law, Bogdan spoke about the practice of preparing for coordinated actions and systemic risks in the lead-up of elections. He discussed the role of Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the extent to which VLOPs can ever truly offer a level playing field for all candidates.

Attila Biro is a co-founder of Context, an independent media start-up focused on exposing corruption, fraud, and organized crime. Attila spoke about Context’s investigate journalism work, particularly their development of AI tools to investigate algorithm manipulation and foreign information manipulations and interference (FIMI) operations in the context of the presidential elections.

Context’s findings reveal how actors sympathetic to presidential candidate Calin Georgescu used Telegram to coordinate messages, hashtags, publication schedules, and emojis, as part of a campaign in favour of Georgescu, effectively leveraging TikTok algorithms to maximise audience reach, with threats to fair and open democratic dialogue.

Overall, the speakers’ experiences testified to the committed efforts impact of civil society organisations in addressing online electoral disinformation risks. As FIMI operations become a shared reality for countries across Europe, organisations like Context have emphasized the importance of cross-border coordination in strengthening democratic resilience to these threats.

Protecting victims of tech-facilitated abuse

The second online seminar took place in early July, 2025 with Cara Hunter and Gayatri Malhotra.  It centred on safeguarding individuals affected by tech-facilitated abuse, such as non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) deep-fakes, to social media account shut-downs.

Cara Hunter, who is currently serving as a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for East Londonderry, shared how in the lead-up to the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election she became the target of a highly gendered disinformation campaign, involving a sexually explicit AI-generated deepfake video.

Deepfakes are not merely tools of disinformation, but mechanisms of entrenching digital forms of gender-based violence in electoral contexts. The synthetic footage -- circulated alongside her official campaign materials -- triggered a surge of digital, misogynistic harassment, and contributing to electoral disorientation. Hunter won her seat by only 14 votes, but, since then, has emerged as a leading advocate for legal and institutional responses to AI-facilitated harms. 

She shared how there was no statutory framework in place to address the threat posed by deepfakes in political life. Law enforcement lacked the cybercrime infrastructure to investigate, and platforms like Meta offered generic responses, citing encryption limitations.

Cara has gone on to successfully support a motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly recognizing the electoral and extra-electoral risks of deepfake technology. Her upcoming Churchill Fellowship will enable her to undertake comparative research in Japan and Australia, focusing on policy frameworks to protect democratic integrity and gender equity.

Gayatri Malhotra, a constitutional lawyer and digital rights advocate, shared her experiences of working at the forefront of legal challenges to India’s expanding digital censorship regime.

Working with the Internet Freedom Foundation, Gayatri successfully representing petitioners in two significant cases -- Kunal Kamra and the Association of Indian Magazines -- contesting the constitutionality of the 2023 IT Amendment Rules; these rules, which were ultimately deemed unconstitutional, granted the central government sweeping authority to unilaterally label online content as “fake,” “false,” or “misleading,” compelling digital intermediaries to comply with takedown orders or risk severe penalties, including criminal liability for in-country staff.

Gayatri highlighted the structural dangers of centralizing epistemic authority within the executive branch. She voiced how these frameworks incentivize overcompliance from intermediaries, resulting in wholesale account suspensions -- including those of journalists and media outlets -- absent adequate procedural safeguards. She framed this not merely as a censorship issue, but as a crisis of democratic infrastructure. 

While the Bombay High Court ultimately struck down the fact-check unit provisions in September 2024, Gayatri warned that the broader regulatory architecture remains deeply problematic. Gayatri and the Internet Freedom Foundation more widely, pointed to the use of a centralized government portal that enables extra-judicial censorship -- executive orders issued without public disclosure, clear justification, or an opportunity for affected users to contest removal. 

Gayatri underscored the urgent need to re-establish procedural fairness and judicial oversight within India’s digital governance framework, and to resist the normalization of parallel processes that obscure accountability and constrain dissent.

Future sessions 

The CSLS InfoLead Programme looks forward to continuing to strengthening this network of senior professionals working across sectors to strengthen democratic resilience, accountability, rule of law, and human rights protections in the face of emerging technologies.