Disinformation and propaganda should be treated as part of the broader picture of national security, considers Filip Stojanovski, Director for Partnerships and Resource Development at the “Metamorphosis” Foundation. In his comment for CIVIL Media on the situation with dealing with fake news, he says that it is important to act systematically by including several factors.
“When we look at multiple aspects of digital rights, we primarily see information such as national security. Both in the region and broader at the European level, and also with different research, it has been determined that we truly have a surge of disinformation. They started with greater intensity after the Russian aggression in Ukraine. They didn’t come from one source only, but as can be noticed, there are trends of disinformation that existed previously, and which are linked either to Russian or pro-Russian sources of information in Western countries or by downloading at the national level, taking information that suits certain centers of power”, says Stojanovski.
According to Stojanovski, disinformation serves also to confuse the population for the purpose of achieving local political goals.
“We also have so-called cross-border disinformation, that is, spillover of information from one Balkan country to another, as well as other forms of manipulations that not necessarily have to contain lies, but any information in the attempt to provoke feelings, especially negatives feelings, to introduce discord and hatred, and to disrupt the democratic processes and the integration of the region into Europe and NATO, but to also hinder the efforts to help Ukraine. They also serve to make the population passive, to lose trust in the democratic system and to lean towards the option, and towards some political option of dictatorship, of authoritarian rule that also Putin promotes”, considers Stojanovski.
As to the question how we can fight disinformation, Stojanovski says that we need to act systematically and have more factors pooled together.
“We have long years of experience in Metamorphosis with fact-checking. It is a particular genre in journalism. Once something has been published, its accuracy is checked and citizens are informed about its reliability. But fact-checking is not enough, it’s necessary in a broader system that includes development of professional journalism, media pluralism, encouraging investigative journalism, affirmation of media literacy, different approaches to increasing the educational level. So, the fight is impossible without systematic action in which all social factors will be involved, not just journalists, not just NGOs, but also institutions, educational institutions, and even the private sector. Because different forms of manipulation, fraud, commercial actions affect us all, it is therefore very important that we all fight against them in a systematic way. At the same time, maintain inclusiveness and human rights, namely, the right to freedom of expression”, he says.
Ana Vasilevska
Camera and editing: Samuel Debus/OK-TV Ludwigshafen
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
The interview is part of the project “Resilient journalism in countering disinformation and propaganda”, which CIVIL is implementing in partnership with Youth4Media (Y4M), with the support of the Government of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dusseldorf, Germany.
