“As part of my work I am dealing with topics like disinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid-19 but also the climate crisis. Corona and climate change-deniers have many things in common. Both groups don’t accept academic instiutions or scientific findings. Often, they even work against science. Some of them even start bigger hate or disinformation campaigns and attack political oppononets to intimidate or silence them. With my work I am trying to prevent that we further distance ourselves from scientifically-based solutions instead of embracing them. To overcome today’s most urgent crises – the climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic – we must also fight the related ‘infodemic’, as the WHO is calling it.”

Julia Ebner researches extremism and terrorism and is a Research Fellow at the  Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London. For her new book “Going Dark: the Secret Social Lives of Extremists” she went undercover, joining extremist groups from across the ideological spectrum online.

Photo: (c) Daniel Novotny