United States has pressured several allied countries to withdraw or reduce their support for an international conference on disinformation taking place this week in Vilnius (Lithuania). According to Reuters, officials from the State Department contacted representatives from Lithuania, Canada, and France for several days to discuss their participation in the meeting.
The U.S. initiative comes after the #Disinfo2026 program, organized by EU DisinfoLab, included a panel dedicated to the role of the United States in manipulation and information interference operations affecting Europe. The meeting takes place on October 7 and 8 and brings together representatives from governments, civil organizations, media, and disinformation experts.
Washington's intervention has already had consequences for institutional participation. Canada has reviewed its presence on several panels, and Lithuania has canceled its participation after considering that some parts of the program do not align with the official position of its Government.
A panel on the U.S. as an information threat
The origin of the controversy lies in a session titled USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back. The acronym FIMI stands for Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, the term used to describe manipulation and information interference operations coming from abroad.
The conference program itself raises as a central question of the panel how the United States came to be seen as a FIMI threat to Europe. The session was scheduled after an intervention by International Criminal Court judge Kimberly Prost, who is among those sanctioned by the United States.
The U.S. State Department did not confirm specific diplomatic conversations but argued that it should not be surprising that some countries distanced themselves from the meeting after learning that the United States had been presented as a disinformation threat. Washington maintained that such a framing undermines shared objectives and should concern the participants.
France maintains its support
France is the only Government that continues to be the main institutional support of the conference. A French diplomat quoted by Reuters noted that the Executive does not participate in the development of the program, but that it maintains its usual support for civil society initiatives aimed at combating disinformation.
EU DisinfoLab maintains the development of the meeting in Vilnius. The organization had announced that this edition would address, in addition to information manipulation operations, issues such as the application of European legislation on digital services, the responsibility of platforms, the financing of disinformation campaigns, and the impact of artificial intelligence.