You can register to attend by following this link. You will receive a Zoom confirmation email should your registration be successful. Alternatively, you can watch the event live here on our Facebook page.

As digital platforms become central to public debate across MENA, they have also become powerful tools for manipulation. The second webinar in ARI’s “Siyasa & Silicon” series examines how disinformation networks – amplified by new technologies including AI-generated fakes – are reshaping political dynamics, fueling polarization, and even contributing to violence on the ground.

This session asks four critical questions:

• Who are the actors behind online manipulation? What do we know about the political, military, commercial, and foreign networks shaping information flows?
• What tools do they use? From coordinated inauthentic behavior to bot farms, deepfakes, and AI-generated propaganda.
• How is this affecting societies in conflict? What evidence do we have about the impact on trust, polarization, and violence?
• What can be done? How can journalists, researchers, technologists, and civil society organizations counter manipulative narratives?

ARI's "Siyasa & Silicon" series seeks to advance social-science engagement with artificial intelligence and emerging technologies across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, fostering critical inquiry into how digital transformation is influencing governance, accountability, and civic life.