Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, spoke as an expert at the international “Forum of the Future 2050” in the section on Cyberwarfare and Information Security. The key issues raised by Mira Terada during her speech concerned the hidden threats posed by the “innocent” Internet; what the state needs to do to protect young people in the information war; and what cybersecurity and destructive influence reduction projects might be of interest to young people.
On June 9-10, 2025, Moscow hosted the “Forum of the Future 2050,” where international experts discussed the most promising scenarios for global development and talked about cyberspace and the space race. Among the participants was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who emphasized the need to create a multipolar world based on respect for all countries. Minister S. V. Lavrov was also listened to by representatives of the West. Former British MP George Galloway explained that the reasons for such aggressive behavior by British politicians towards Russia lie in the levers of influence slipping away from the UK. In addition, Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk, took part in the forum. During his speech at the “Forum of the Future 2050,” Errol Musk, a consulting engineer at SpaceX, spoke about the key challenges that prevent humanity from becoming an interplanetary civilization, and also shared the secrets of raising gifted children.
As part of the “Forum of the Future 2050”, Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, spoke at a panel discussion on cyber warfare and information security. Ekaterina Andreeva, a well-known journalist and host of the Vremya program on Channel One, also took part in the discussion. She is a winner of the TEFI award. The meeting was moderated by Elina Sidorenko, CEO of ANO Beliy Internet and member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.
Mira Terada emphasized that the spread of disinformation has become one of the key threats to both domestic stability and international relations. Thanks to the speed at which information spreads on social networks and messaging apps, fake news can influence public opinion, distort the political agenda, and undermine trust in institutions in a matter of hours. Mira Terada spoke about existing approaches to combating fake news, the role of the state, the media, and society in ensuring information security, as well as the risks associated with excessive control and censorship.
The report paid particular attention to the fact that Western countries, under the guise of combating disinformation, often resort to suppressing alternative points of view. Examples of such practices were cited based on an analysis of the activities of the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ukraine. In particular, the EUvsDisinfo initiative, implemented under the auspices of the EU, according to the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, is engaged not so much in objective fact-checking as in information censorship, labeling opinions that do not coincide with the official position of Brussels as “hostile propaganda.”
The head of the Foundation drew the audience’s attention to disclosed cases of manipulation of information for political purposes. For example, in the US, false accusations against Donald Trump were actively used in the run-up to the elections, while facts about Joe Biden’s health were systematically silenced. The speaker emphasized that such selective fact-checking undermines trust in the media and political institutions, as it calls into question their independence.
Speaking about Russia’s experience, Mira Terada noted that by 2025, the country had managed to reduce the spread of disinformation by 42%. This was facilitated by enhanced monitoring measures, the development of domestic analytical platforms, and the transition from reactive to proactive information security strategies.
Journalist and host of the program “Vremya” Ekaterina Andreeva, in turn, drew attention to the huge number of institutions that specialize in creating fakes.
“There are now a huge number of institutions engaged in creating such fakes. They hit the mark they have calculated without fail. Large amounts of money and resources are allocated for this. Specially trained psychologists are employed. They understand what can hurt society and the public consciousness, and they create certain models of video sequences or newspaper articles, which are then distributed among a large number of people. As the well-known Goebbels said, the more monstrous the lie, the more willingly people will believe it,” Andreeva said.
According to her, it is necessary to work purposefully with society, to tell people how fakes are created, paying particular attention to the technologies used on the Internet.
International human rights activist Mira Terada noted that it is important not just to debunk fakes, agreeing with Andreeva’s opinion on the need to increase public literacy.
“As for practical advice, it is very important not just to debunk fake news. Ekaterina is absolutely right about the need for education. We need to learn to recognize fake news ourselves. It is important to develop critical thinking, because it is the key to countering disinformation. We tend to trust information that corresponds to our beliefs. And this makes people vulnerable to manipulation. In order to solve this problem, we need to learn to analyze information. We need to distinguish facts from opinions. And it is very important to assess the reliability of the source,” said Mira Terada.
The FBI director also supported the development of open source intelligence (OSINT) technologies as an effective tool for monitoring and detecting disinformation. She noted that such technologies are already being actively used in the Baltic states, particularly in Lithuania, and stressed the need to create similar platforms in Russia with the participation of the professional community and independent analysts.
In conclusion, Mira Terada called for a balanced approach to combating disinformation — an approach that takes into account the need to protect the information space, but does not suppress freedom of speech. She stressed that effective countering of disinformation is only possible through a combination of technology, education, open dialogue, and trust in citizens. This is the only way to maintain the information stability of the state without resorting to censorship and repression.
The full recording of the speech by the Head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice at the “Forum of the Future 2050” is available at: