Kateryna Pavlova, expert on disinformation and propaganda, Ukraine / Germany on the Panel “Countering Authoritarianism” at the conference “Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, December 12, 2024, Skopje.
I am representing a German NGO, but on my badge it says Ukraine. And whichever function, I represent Ukraine too. And my feeling is- never doing enough. I’m not on the front now, and it’s a decision for today, and I’m sorry about not being there, not defending democracy and freedom with my body. But how I help myself about it? By wearing my shoes, I choose military shoes to go on the stage, because it somehow helps to reconnect to what it is actually about. And to be grateful to the people who could also sit here in a nice, warm room. But they decided to go on the front, and to fight for democracy with their bodies. And maybe also to die for that.
We definitely have to remember about that, yes, we are not doing enough! And we have to do more. What I see traveling through different countries is that the dictators are really good at bonding, and the networking, while the democrats think ten times before they network with someone.
So we need to face these problems first, we are really bad, I will name three problems and I will also try to give solutions to them.
The second problem is that the disinformation and propaganda, target people on the level of information, emotion, and values.
And I think that media literacy is only about information, and this is where we are week, our weapon is not good enough. We see the disinformation is working with people on three levels, and we counter it with just one direction. No, we have to go deeper.
So I suggest, for the thing that not only working on the level of information but also to work on emotions and values- we need to leave rooms like this, we need to go on the street, to face the people and talk to them.
And the third thing, about alliances, it’s not enough just to be connected. North Macedonia is way better than Germany in countering disinformation, we see such a resilience that we should learn from this and why is North Macedonian people so resilient… And take this knowledge to Germany.
What we see is that autocrats spend a lot of money on disinformation, and we don’t have that, we take the decisions together. I see how new methods are being used from the autocrats and being neglected by the democrats
D. Tahiri
Camera: Atanas Petrovski/ Igor Chadinovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Photo: Robert Atanasovski
CONFERENCE, FULL VIDEO, Streamed live on December 12, 2024:
https://youtube.com/live/1f2Eo1ZXEQ0
PHOTO ARCHIVES: #DefendingDemocracy, Panel 1: Democracy under Siege
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.994398716055531&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy, Panel 2: The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995019619326774&type=3
#DefendingDemocrcy Panel 3: Countering Authoritarianism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995771969251539&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy conference, Panel 4: Commitment to democracy
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.996548069173929&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy Conference (overall)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set?set=a.993726732789396&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy – workshop and meeting with the press
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.992924672869602&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy PRESS CONFERENCE
For more information on the Conference, please visit the special website DefendingDemocracy
