Stage Talks with Bellingcat "How We Got Here: The Rise, Backlash and Future Of Counter-Disinformation" with Eliot Higgins and Dr Claire Wardle
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Jan 30, 2026 
Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat and open-source investigation pioneer, and Dr Claire Wardle, Cornell information ecosystems expert and co-founder of First Draft News, discuss the rise of verification practices. They explore early OSINT community building, geolocation and forensic techniques, the 2016 inflection, funding and sustainability, AI’s threat to trust, platform tensions, and the future of community-led verification.
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Rush Caused Mislabels During COVID
- Claire admitted mistakes during COVID, saying teams rushed and sometimes mislabeled unsettled science as misinformation.
- She argued the sector focused on policy enforcement examples rather than platform responsibility.
Institutions' Gatekeeping Collapsed
- Claire argued freedom of expression debates miss that institutional pre-filtering collapsed into public sharing, shifting verification responsibilities onto citizens.
- She warned governments use civil society as proxies to pressure platforms, creating legitimate concerns about overreach.
Call Witnesses Before Claiming Truth
- Claire advised that human verification remains essential: pick up the phone and ask eyewitnesses directly when possible.
- She cautioned against believing AI verification alone and urged patience until independent evidence appears.