On Tuesday, 6 February 2024, at the initiative of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul", a Guide regarding the identification, classification, and countering of false information, in the public and media space of the Republic of Moldova, was launched with the intention to facilitate the quick and easy identification of fake news, by applying the verification tool called "red flags". The guide was developed within the project "Supporting critical thinking and resistance to disinformation in the Republic of Moldova", financially supported by the Embassy of Finland in Bucharest.
During the discussions on the guide, organized within the Discussion Platform to combat disinformation in a national, regional, and international context, at the second working session, Sergiu Bugai, the author of the guide, stated that this is a tool dedicated to those who create and consume news and information, as it includes not only the detection of disinformation and the manipulation of public opinion but also analysis procedures and recommendations for preventing and counteracting the risks generated by these harmful tactics.
"In addition to providing information on how to spot and verify fake information/news, the guide also provides examples to develop your skills in this area. The "red flags" tool provides useful tips that should be considered when consuming media news and verifying before sharing them on social media. To achieve advanced fact-checking, the guide also presents a list of online platforms for checking information sources, data, video, and photo materials", said Sergiu Bugai.
The author of the guide also says that many interdisciplinary research centers apply the methodology of "red flags" to identify fake news more quickly. The Oxford Internet Institute has launched the online guide The ComProp Navigator to check the news, where also is found the tool Top Six Red Flags that a News Story is Unreliable, Disreputable and Embarrassing for You to Share developed by the media watchdog in the United States „Ad Fontes Media”. Another American organization, ”The News Literacy Project”, launched the free e-learning platform ”Checkology”, which proposes the instrument Ten Questions for news detection for checking fake news. The company "TeachThought" offers "Critical Thinking" e-learning platforms, proposing the tool 20 Questions To Help Students Think Critically About News to identify false information.
The guide also mentions that disinformation has been and continues to be a challenge for democracy. The digital age needs new approaches and commitments to match the scale, speed, and prevalence of information threats launched into the public and media space. The problem of fake news has become one of the most important topics in modern journalism. More and more, the social science system, journalists, and information security specialists are taking the problem of fake news, and more recently, deepfakes created by artificial intelligence, very seriously. Their impact on the opinion and behavior of the news consumer is very noticeable, especially during pre-election campaigns. "A series of researches, analyses, recommendations, media education manuals, and policies regarding information security have been developed by fact-checking experts and Moldovan journalists. However, in the conditions of a hybrid war, in which the national media space has become a battlefield, there is a need to react promptly and operatively to everything called disinformation, manipulation, fake news", the author mentions in the Guide.
"Propaganda is targeting our country in an increasingly active manner. An opinion survey, presented last year, shows that around 70% of Moldovan citizens believe that it is very difficult for them to distinguish between false and true information. This is an indicator that stands before civil society, journalists, and all those who are interested in combating this phenomenon. We know that several organizations are working in that direction. This Guide, which was created by Sergiu Bugai, at the behest of IDIS "Viitorul", we believe will be useful both to journalists, journalists and representatives of civil society, students, and all those interested in understanding how this phenomenon works", said the executive director of IDIS "Viitorul", Liubomir Chiriac.
"With the start of the war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, we felt the fertile ground to work intensively in this field of disinformation, supporting critical thinking and resilience to disinformation in the Republic of Moldova. Today, we are in an information-abundant era, and we believe that the ability to analyze, evaluate, and select information is crucial for a society that wants to be democratic, prosperous, and healthy. From the flow of information that is spread today, it is very difficult to tell if it is fake news, erroneous information, propaganda, or misinformation. In drafting this guide, we felt that a useful tool was needed to help society be able to verify the information that is being provided", mentioned Carolina Ungureanu, deputy director of IDIS "Viitorul", project manager.
Mihail Nesteriuc, a student at the Faculty of Journalism at the USM, and a member of the Discussion Platform, stated that the Guide is interesting, well-constructed, and even a source of information for the whole society. But his concern about misinformation is related to those deepfakes, which are created for ridicule, to amuse people. "I doubt that many people believe that what is shown through these deepfakes is true. We have to be careful, because we don't know if these deepfakes, which are being made today, won't turn into something serious over time, and the situation can become dangerous", said Mihail Nesteriuc.
Ion Bunduchi, director of public policy within the Electronic Press Association, stated that no matter how many guides and studies of this kind there will be, they will not be enough, because the phenomenon of disinformation is very complex. The expert urged everyone to be careful when using the notions of "fake information" and "fake news". "News is a journalistic genre. Journalists are taught to write news, and journalists are not taught to write fake news. Journalists who write fake news are pseudo-journalists. It could happen that someone intentionally widely uses fake news to cast this harmful shadow on journalists. Not all fake news is harmful and not all propaganda is harmful. If propaganda is capable of causing disastrous damage, then we must take care of this propaganda. Not all misinformation is dangerous. It is dangerous when it harms national security. When we use the notions more accurately, we can focus on the truly harmful phenomena, which we need to identify, assess, and determine to be harmful and potentially harmful, and to combat them", said Ion Bunduchi.
Oxana Iuteș, director of Internews Moldova, recalled that the Center for Independent Journalism developed in 2017 the first media education manual, for the primary level. Then, it followed for the middle school level in 2018 and in 2019 for the high school level. According to Oxana Iuteș, the optional course is not about media education and media content, but about information literacy, which is already outdated. "These notions are intellectually, informationally, and digitally outdated. Children don't read the news. Kids are only on social media. Few people read and watch the news today. Even the notions need to be changed. Because of this avalanche of fake news, the journalistic industry was affected in Moldova, especially during the pandemic we had. Smart people called it infodemic because it's about information, not specific journalistic content. Things are changing so quickly, that we have to realize that we are no longer analyzing from the point of view of journalistic content, but we are talking about informational content on social media, video", pointed out Oxana Iuteș.
During the second working session of the Platform, two articles were presented, in which two participants in the Training program on critical thinking, media literacy, analysis, resistance to disinformation, and unbiased coverage of public interest information, organized in May-June 2023, analyzed news topics distorted or presented in an intentionally erroneous way, to misinform the Moldovan public opinion.
A Discussion Platform to combat disinformation in a national, regional, and international context was launched on Monday, October 16, at the initiative of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul". This is represented by journalists, students, and non-governmental organizations that implement projects in the field of disinformation, but also by teachers who teach media education in schools.
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The project "Supporting Critical Thinking and Resistance to Disinformation in Moldova," implemented by the IDIS "Viitorul" from January 2023 to October 2024, is financially supported by the Embassy of Finland in Bucharest.
IDIS "Viitorul" is an independent think tank established in 1993 that combines social, political and economic research with strong advocacy components. The institution conducts applied monitoring research on several areas: economics, social policy, EU policies, regional development, but also security and foreign policy risk.
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