disinformation

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.

Liberalism and the liberals are shown in in a clever way as an opponent both strong and dangerous but also weak and ridiculous. This is a strategy of disinformation that is far from being easily repulsed.

Disinformation affects many Western liberal democracies. It undermines public trust in important values of free societies, the institutional frameworks of the European Union (EU) and NATO, civil liberties, different minorities, and the market economy.

“Fake news!” The phrase has been thrown about so much lately that it lost most of its meaning and gravitas. But what does it actually mean? One definition explains it as “deliberately presenting false information as news” and differentiates it as a subset of disinformation.

In the spring of 2020, the STEM institute, supported by the Prague office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, carried out an extensive investigation of Czech seeders of disinformation. They are currently estimated to make up approximately 5% of the Czech society.