No. 13

We are pleased to present the twelfth issue of 4liberty.eu Review, titled “DisinforNation: Disinformation Practices in CEE”. This time, our primary focus is the techniques employed by various agents in the region aimed at seeding and spreading false or manufactured information.

We present you the 13th issue of 4liberty.eu Review, which investigates both the existing, well-established spheres of spreading disinformation and these recently developing in CEE.

False information harms its recipients, and if the damage is done to a large number of citizens or households, this causes problems for governments too. An example would be a foreign country using disinformation to influence the outcome of elections in another country.

The EU as a community of nation states was weakened after the immigration crisis in 2015 and after the crisis in the Eurozone in 2010, where Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece recorded the greatest recessions. According to the Pew Research Centre surveys conducted among member states, a temporary drop in trust in the EU may be observed.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a global health crisis that inevitably spills into other areas of people’s lives. In responding to the exigencies of the coronavirus pandemic, governments around the world have made vast and unprecedented decisions to combat the spread of the virus and protect lives.

The administrations of the “home” nations of these minorities, naturally, seek to protect them from real or perceived threats and secure the legal protection of their rights. These efforts are often interpreted by host nations as foreign interference in their affairs.

Disinformation has also become a tool for so-called “patriotic politicians” building their campaigns and proclamations on fear and hate, as well as using foreign hostile propaganda.

The rise of disinformation media has been noted world-wide, with traditional media losing readers/viewers and thus getting into financial problems. In the Czech context, this has been compounded by the transfers of media from foreign into Czech billionaires hands.

The political agenda of the government would thence dictate their political news broadcasting: some facts would be omitted, others manipulated or distorted, blown out of proportion, or even simply created out of nothing.

Already in 2015 it was obvious for PiS that everything must be done to win the 2018, 2019, and 2020 elections. The first, namely the regional and the European elections, were only a prelude before the grand finale between a new parliament and a president would be chosen.