Fireside chat with Michal Boni

There are many cases of disinformation all over the world. It establishes the political tensions, undermines the democracy, supports the polarisation development, which is very often a key tool for the populistic forms of governance. The fake-news, the conspiracy theories development requires the proper response as some tools and solutions used in the catalogue of the European Code of Practices on disinformation for online platform and some future projected instruments, as for instance the defunding of ads used in the process of dissemination of disinformation (demonetisation of fake news).

But the challenge is regarding to the awareness of people and the critical thinking skills among the societies. It also requires the clear warning system in the internet build by collaborative efforts of all partners: platforms, users, civil society organisations, media fact-checkers, researchers.

It is essential to understand the reasons of so far dissemination of disinformation - related to the sociocultural phenomena ( the lack of trust of public institutions and science) and psychological causes (some discomforts, especially increased during the Covid-19 time, or related to the attitude of the extreme individualism - “defending my own liberty I am against vaccination” e.g.).

In the light of the growing disinformation examples during Covid (especially anti vaxx attitudes) and the European institutions works on strengthening the role of Code and its tools for reducing the impact of disinformation - we can discuss about the problem. In addition trying to find the powerful organisers of those manipulative actions.