Young European Ambassadors and European External Action Service launch ‘YEAvsDisinfo’ campaign

The first online event as part of the new ‘YEAvsDisinfo’ campaign was held on Monday, 19 February. The event introduced the concept of disinformation and the work of the European External Action Service (EEAS) to over 30 young people from the European Union and Eastern Partnership countries.

Young European Ambassadors Robin-Cristian Bucur-Portase and Anna Romanovska opened the discussion with a general overview of the topic of disinformation, followed by examples of the real-life impacts of disinformation presented by Uldis Elksnitis, Information and Communication Officer of the EEAS.

Elksnitis also presented the European Union’s work to combat disinformation in the six Eastern Partnership countries by promoting situational awareness, media literacy, and cooperation with civil society, including EUvsDiSiNFO – the EEAS flagship project to combat disinformation campaigns by the Russian Federation.

The YEAvsDisinfo campaign will continue until October 2024 with a number of activities aiming to showcase disinformation narratives in the Eastern Partnership countries, teach participants media literacy skills, and provide knowledge of the EU’s and the individual countries’ work to mitigate harmful content online.

Young people are invited to take part in the upcoming online events of the campaign, which will focus on the media landscape in each of the six EaP countries. The first such event will take place in March and will focus on Moldova.

The Young European Ambassadors (YEAs) initiative brings together socially engaged youth from the six Eastern Partner countries, the European Union and the United Kingdom to foster dialogue and to raise awareness about the EU’s cooperation with its Eastern partner countries.