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Chronicling the weaponization of information

Fifteen years ago, the internet still carried the promise of strengthening democracy, empowering civil society and challenging authoritarian control. Since then, that optimism has collided with a darker reality, as the same digital sphere has become a powerful space for disinformation, manipulation and political polarization. Revisiting the early years of New Eastern Europe shows just how profoundly our understanding of the information environment has changed.

September 11, 2026 - Maciej Makulski - Hot TopicsIssue 5 2026Magazine

Illustration by Andrzej Zaręba

The 15th anniversary of New Eastern Europe serves as a perfect occasion for a deep dive into the magazine’s growing archive. For this reflective essay, I have chosen several issues from the first years (2011-15) of publication to examine how the problem of disinformation was framed and analysed in the past. This is done to follow the evolution of this phenomenon that today is a part of the wider arsenal of hybrid threats, and track how the analysis of the problem has evolved through the years. The archive reflects less a sequence of clearly separated stages in the development of the information environment than a gradual change in how that environment was understood and analysed.

Early optimism

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