The article describes EU cross-sectoral policy work on online information threats, focusing on the intersection between values and 'referent objects'. Examining discussions on strategic communication, censorship, media literacy and media pluralism, two value-perspectives were identified: while abstract procedural values of efficiency and coherence guide content management in the security/defence/internet communities, media/education communities highlight the end-goals of content pluralism and enhanced citizen judgement. In implementation, the former's lack of substantive goals, coupled with an outsourcing of content management, may give rise to hybrid values. The findings highlight the danger of neglecting substance in favor of efficient management of an online 'battlespace'.

With citizens turning to extremism, ‘counter-narratives’ have been forwarded as a remedy for online ‘counter-radicalisation’. Still, the relationship between counter-narratives and counter-radicalisation remains theoretically under-examined. Taking as its starting point a policy proposal by the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), and drawing on the work of Arendt and Kant on judgement, this article explores the link between political mind-change and the counter-narrative forms of logic, facts and humour. By understanding radicalisation as an error of judgement, the text examines implicit assumptions about politics and the mind in counter-narrative policy. While counter-narratives of fact and logic emphasise the self-evident nature of political decision-making by ‘saying what is’, the humorous counter-narratives, meant to disarm through laughter-induced aporia, fail to live up to the instrumental logic required by the policymakers. Rather than representing a solution to the problem of radicalisation, the counter-narrative remedy is better described as a ‘vehicle for sense’ in the discourse on extremism.