Fear of Disinformation May Threaten Democracy as Much as the Lies Themselves, Tech Expert Warns

The growing public anxiety about disinformation and online manipulation may pose a threat to democratic societies that is just as serious as the falsehoods circulating on social media, according to a Danish technology expert.

Valdemar Osted, a partner and head of technology at the Danish digital consultancy Common Consultancy, appeared on France 24's Spotlight programme to challenge some of the most widely shared assumptions about how foreign influence operations affect online behaviour. Speaking with host François Picard, Osted questioned the popular narrative that attacks on Russian data centres had triggered a sudden drop in online engagement among supporters of Donald Trump in the United States and Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Drawing on social media monitoring and research into inauthentic behaviour, Osted said he had found no unusual decline in Facebook interactions following the reported attacks. His findings cast doubt on claims that have circulated widely online suggesting that a significant portion of political engagement in Western countries is artificially generated and that disrupting Russian infrastructure would expose it.

While Osted acknowledged that Russian influence operations and disinformation campaigns are real and well-documented phenomena, he cautioned against conflating the mere existence of automated accounts with proof of meaningful electoral influence. The presence of bots, he argued, does not automatically mean that public opinion has been swayed or that democratic outcomes have been illegitimately determined.

At the heart of his analysis is a broader concern about the consequences of pervasive suspicion. Osted suggested that the democratic danger extends well beyond foreign interference itself to the growing distrust that such interference narratives foster among ordinary citizens. When people lose confidence in the authenticity of political discourse, the foundations of democratic debate begin to weaken.

"The mere presence of even a small amount of misinformation or disinformation can, over time, erode trust in democracy and our institutions," he warned. His remarks point to a paradox at the centre of contemporary debates about online manipulation: efforts to expose and combat disinformation can themselves contribute to a climate of suspicion in which citizens doubt everything they see and hear.

This dynamic raises a difficult question for democracies around the world. When allegations of manipulation become pervasive and every piece of information is treated as potentially fabricated, can widespread fear of deception become a destabilising force in its own right?

Osted's argument suggests that the answer may be yes. A society in which citizens no longer trust the information they encounter, or in which they suspect that their neighbours and fellow voters are acting as unwitting tools of foreign powers, risks losing the shared basis of facts and mutual good faith that democratic decision-making requires.

The interview also touched on the methodological challenges of studying online behaviour. Distinguishing between genuine grassroots engagement and coordinated inauthentic activity is difficult, and researchers must be careful not to overstate their conclusions. Osted's work appears to emphasise the importance of rigorous monitoring rather than jumping to dramatic conclusions about the scale of manipulation.

His comments come amid heightened international attention to the role of social media platforms in shaping political outcomes. Western governments have repeatedly accused Russia of using online campaigns to sow division and influence elections, and tech companies have faced pressure to detect and remove coordinated inauthentic behaviour.

Yet Osted's findings suggest that the picture is more complicated than some of the most alarming accounts imply. If engagement on platforms such as Facebook did not collapse after attacks on Russian data centres, that may indicate that the audiences are more organically engaged than some theories assume.

His core message, however, is not that disinformation is harmless. Rather, it is that democracies must avoid responding to the threat in ways that deepen polarisation and undermine public confidence. The fear of being manipulated can be just as corrosive as manipulation itself, particularly when it leads citizens to disengage from political life or to view all institutions as fundamentally untrustworthy.

The solution, according to the perspective Osted outlines, involves rebuilding the habits of democratic society. That means finding ways to engage with one another across political divides, to maintain confidence in shared institutions, and to resist the temptation to treat every disagreement as evidence of bad faith or foreign interference.

His warning carries particular weight at a time when trust in media, government and electoral processes is declining in many countries. If citizens come to believe that the information environment is hopelessly corrupted, the willingness to participate in democratic debate may fade, leaving a vacuum that extremists and authoritarian actors can exploit.

The interview on France 24's Spotlight programme forms part of a wider conversation about technology, democracy and polarisation. By questioning the evidence behind some of the most viral claims about disinformation, Osted invites viewers to think more carefully about how societies should respond to the genuine challenges posed by online manipulation without surrendering to fear.

Ultimately, his message is a call for balance. Democracies need to remain vigilant against foreign interference and coordinated deception, but they also need to preserve the trust and mutual engagement that make democratic politics possible. As Osted put it, there is a need to get back to engaging with one another as a society, a task that no amount of technological monitoring can accomplish on its own.