Eliot Higgins | Analysing Disinformation: Verification, Deliberation & Accountability
Democracy depends on our ability to agree on what is real before we argue about what to do. Today, digital systems reward outrage, identity, and speed over evidence, making it harder to tell the difference between truth, error, and deliberate deception. This talk explores how that breakdown happens and how rebuilding stronger habits of verification, open debate, and accountability is essential to tackling challenges like the climate crisis.
About the Speaker
Eliot Higgins is the founder of Bellingcat, the investigative collective that helped pioneer modern open source investigation. He first gained recognition for exposing weapons use in the Syrian conflict and launched Bellingcat in 2014 following the downing of MH17, where the team identified the Russian missile launcher responsible. Under his leadership, Bellingcat has grown into a globally respected organisation advancing open source methods in journalism, justice, and accountability. In recent years, Higgins has also developed the Verification–Deliberation–Accountability (VDA) framework and related research on disordered discourse, examining how digital information systems are reshaping democratic knowledge and institutional trust. He is the author of the best-selling We Are Bellingcat and leads Bellingcat Productions BV, producing documentaries and media based on Bellingcat’s investigations.
About the Mastercourse
This webinar is part of the 'Climate and Political Influence in The Age of Information Crises' Online Mastercourse, held on the 17th-19th of March 2026, and hosted by Tactical Tech. This online mastercourse explores methods and tactics to navigate, investigate and expose how climate and political influence shape our decisions and choices as individuals, organizations, communities and societies.
How do we navigate information and misinformation overload while multiple crises are unfolding everywhere, all the time? And how can we do this as media, journalists, investigators or NGOs when our role is to inform our communities and work for the public interest while facing ever-increasing challenges?
Climate is at the forefront of technological, economic and political power interactions. Journalists and scientists investigate climate disasters, their causes and how societies can adapt to them; tech companies strive to appear greener while seeking new ways to mine the environment to increase efficiency and profit; political actors navigate the usual cycle of power-grabbing, survival and compromise; for activists, it is “now or never” – it has been like that for a long time. Each actor has their own public influence mechanisms, some louder than others, some less ethical than others. Who can be trusted and how can people make informed choices when they can no longer verify the message, the channel or the source?
About Us
The Mastercourse is provided by Tactical Tech, an international NGO that engages with citizens and civil-society organisations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society.
This mastercourse is part of the “Media Organisations for Stronger Transnational Journalism” (MOST) project, which aims to strengthen the resilience of independent media outlets in Europe by offering innovative business and audience development strategies, and a collaborative platform for the exchange of knowledge, resources, and content. The MOST project consortium is led by OBC Transeuropa and includes Le Courrier des Balkans, New Eastern Europe, European Pravda, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), El Orden Mundial, and Tactical Tech. The MOST project is funded by the European Commission CREA Fund (GA 101180285).
Credits and Licensing
This Mastercourse is produced by Jasmine Erkan and Laura Ranca from Tactical Tech's Exposing the Invisible project.
Video Editing: Sam Harper
Music: Theatre Of Delays - bensound.com (License Code: VFXRNY7V7BQN94EA)
This Mastercourse is co-funded by the European Union and Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
