Digital Peace Blog

Youth protesters in Bharatpur, Nepal, demonstrating against government restrictions during the 2025 Nepal Social Media Ban.

Nepal Social Media Ban: Power and Control in 2025

In Nepal, the line between connection and control blurred when the government banned 26 social media platforms. What followed was a youth-led uprising that revealed deep fractures in its fragile democracy. This article reflects on how digital tools can empower or silence, and why Nepal’s struggle offers lessons for a world wrestling with the politics of technology.
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A man holds a smartphone in a dark living room, the screen showing a glitched deepfake face — a visual metaphor for AI in organized crime and the growing threat of digital impersonation.

AI in Organized Crime: The Rise of Deepfakes

A new report published by Europol highlights the increasing threat coming from the use of AI in organized crime. Deepfake extortions, politically motivated cyberattacks and targeted data theft: cybercrime is evolving at a faster pace than Artificial Intelligence regulation. This article explores how organized crime is implementing Generative Artificial Intelligence to expand and professionalize illicit activities worldwide, and the massive human and economic costs that come with it.
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Black ink sketch of a atlas figure under chaotic strokes, symbolising the weight of AI in warfare and the loss of human hesitation.

No Target, No Trigger, No Mercy

In 1943, a German pilot spared a shattered Allied bomber, choosing mercy where orders demanded execution. AI in warfare would not have paused. It would have scanned, confirmed, and fired, not from hatred but from code. Humans still draw fragile lines in war: a flag, a hand, a refusal. Machines do not see lines, only patterns, and once flagged as enemy, context collapses.
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Photorealistic image of a military operator in a dark control room, monitoring multiple screens with satellite maps and conflict data, symbolising AI in warfare and the role of technology in modern conflict zones.

When Peace Becomes Unprofitable: Big Tech, AI and Warfare

From a silenced keynote at the UN’s AI for Good Summit to $47 billion in defense contracts, Big Tech’s entanglement with AI warfare reveals a troubling reality: the same firms promoting “AI for Good” are profiting from its use in war. Behind the glossy rhetoric of ethics and innovation lies a structural paradox, when profit depends on military AI, peace itself becomes a threat to business. This article explores how tech giants have entered the military-industrial complex, why their profit motives create a “peace trap” where conflict fuels innovation, and what it would take to realign AI with the pursuit of peace.
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Europe's digital sovereignty crisis demands urgent action. A photorealistic image shows the European Union flag fractured across a digital circuit board. The golden stars are split by a deep crack in the screen, symbolising European Digital Dependency, technological fragility, and the erosion of sovereignty in the digital age.

European Digital Dependency and the Battle for Democracy

From Musk’s vulgar dismissal of the EU Commissioner to Europe’s reliance on Google Cloud and Chinese 5G, the story of European Digital Dependency is one of sovereignty without power. This article explores how regulations like the DSA clash with harsh realities: Europe depends on the very technologies it seeks to govern. From military contracts to social media platforms shaping elections, it traces how foreign tech has become embedded in Europe’s democratic core, and what pathways exist to reclaim digital resilience.
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Hybrid peacebuilding concept – online video conference with blurred participants on a laptop, contrasted by a green plant symbolising human presence and growth.

Hybrid Peacebuilding – Re-Thinking Digital Development

From Zoom diplomacy during COVID-19 to ongoing negotiations in fragile states, digital tools have changed how peace is built. Yet no screen can replace the rituals of presence — the handshakes, shared spaces, and subtle trust that sustain peace. This article explores hybrid peacebuilding as a way to merge digital inclusion with the irreplaceable power of face-to-face interaction, balancing opportunity with risk in the digital age.
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Person in a dark hoodie using a smartphone, symbolising Pegasus spyware surveillance in Europe

How Spyware is Rewriting the Rules of Democracy

Pegasus spyware Europe has turned smartphones into weapons of surveillance, piercing the heart of privacy and trust. What once seemed like the tool of authoritarian regimes has quietly entered Europe’s democratic core. From Poland’s elections to Spain’s independence movements and Germany’s secret purchase, spyware is no longer just a foreign policy concern - but a domestic democratic crisis. This article explores how Pegasus spyware reshapes European democracy, undermining press freedom, competitive elections, and the citizen–state relationship itself.
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Close-up digital artwork of a human face made of binary code, split into blue and red halves, symbolizing AI bias, data-driven influence, and polarized information.

Rewriting Truth – the AI Manipulation Era Has Arrived

AI is becoming an unseen editor of reality itself. With US oversight dismantled and “anti-woke” neutrality redefined, political agendas can now guide what AI says, what it omits, and how billions worldwide come to understand the world. From curated search results on Truth Social to loosened safeguards on Elon Musk’s Grok, we are entering an age where AI shapes opinion one private conversation at a time. This article traces how deregulation in Washington is setting the stage for a global wave of AI systems that claim impartiality while quietly rewriting truth.
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Abstract digital artwork showing distorted text with words like “create,” “harmonize,” and “disrupt” – symbolising the conflicting forces at play in peace influencing and digital communication.

Rethinking Influence in the Age of Algorithmic Warfare

In today’s landscape of information warfare, where war influencing has become a prevalent force, using digital communication to divide, manipulate, and destabilise; peace influencing could serve as a vital counterstrategy. This article explores digital peace through the lens of peace journalism and media theory, tracing how narratives shape conflict and cohesion alike. It examines the historical role of media in war, the transformation brought by social platforms, and how strategic communication is now being reclaimed to foster dialogue, empathy, and democratic resilience. From global grassroots efforts to evolving norms in digital communication, it argues that influencing for peace is no longer idealistic, but necessary.
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Blurred human face partially obscured by strands of glowing lights, symbolising cognitive overload, digital entanglement, and the loss of mental clarity in the age of algorithmic influence.

The Hidden Democratic Cost of Cognitive Offloading 

We increasingly let machines think for us, not just in everyday choices, but in how we navigate reality itself. Cognitive offloading describes this process of delegating mental tasks to external systems. What begins as a tool for convenience can quietly erode our ability to notice, remember, and decide for ourselves. As artificial intelligence mediates how we access information, make decisions, and even perceive the world, this quiet handover of our cognitive autonomy is not only convenient, but becoming dangerous. This article explores how cognitive offloading undermines our ability to think critically, and why that erosion poses a structural threat to our democracies.
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