Internet trolls spreading disinformation and journalists jailed because of their views, – Liberal International (LI) unified fighters against disinformation from various countries to the LI hosted webinar, Truth or Share: How will the digital disinformation war end?
To the event, LI invited Maria Ressa, Journalist and CEO of Rappler, Dragoș Tudorache MEP, Chairman of Special Committee on artificial intelligence in a digital age in the European Parliament, Akinwale Goodluck, Head of Sub Saharan Africa, Global System for Mobile Communications (GMSA), Ketevan Bojgua, Journalist and Founder and Chairperson of Democracy Lab Georgia, and moderated by LI Vice President and Human Rights Committee chair, Astrid Thors, who unlatched immediately by thanking the diversified group of experienced experts and mentioned the relevance of Fake News with the upcoming US Presidential Election.
“Fake News is a weapon, there are rules and instruments we use to regulate any weapons trait – Sanctions, retaliation, naming and shaming, we need to bound our diplomatic efforts against those that use it.” – Dragoș Tudorache MEP
Dragoș Tudorache MEP, foregrounded the fact that disinformation is a threat to our democracies and the use of word ‘war’ is an understatement, expressing the first line of defence must come from the politicians and that we must never fear the use of sanctions and retaliation under a disinformation attack. Regulation and education are the keys for combating the threat and continued to emphasize the vitality of regulating the use of disinformation weapons and investing in education. In the closing remarks, he recognised the LI and Friedrich-Naumann Foundation’s campaign Freedom Fights Fake.
“I still believe in the wonderful good that this technology can do, but left in the hand of capitalists who became the gatekeepers and then who optimized for growth at all costs, had a cost on every one of us in a democracy.” – Maria Ressa
“I could face up to the maximum sentence of 100 years – when you are the target you get to see the shifts in tactics.” said Maria Ressa, talking about the allegations she has received through the years. One of Rappler’s stories could see her face up to 6 years in prison, for a story published 8 years ago and violating a law that did not exist at the time. Press Freedom has rolled back, but its beyond that, she said.
“It is a real war because it is well-orchestrated, well designed and often well-executed.” – Akinwale Goodluck
Akinwale Goodluck spoke about the phenomenon of disinformation war with people spreading lies in rooms and results in sparking fights on the streets. Fewer literacy levels in the area crave easier readable text and more visualisation from the government, and messaged strongly of it being a real war, due to its well-planned strategy and tactics.
“We were at the stage of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and now at the stage of acceptance – we have accepted we are in this war.” – Keti Bojgua
Bill Gates wants to microchip the globe through vaccines, 5G spreads COVID19 – those are conspiracy theories that are spread on social media, says Keti Bojgua, and shared a memory of her time in school, where Stalin was portrayed as a hero and saver of the World War II. She also embarked the importance of standing together in this fight.
All the panellists agreed on education’s vitality in the disinformation war. The event was concluded by moderator Astrid Thors, who raised the need for a human right based social media business model and embraced the panelists important work for freedom and rule of law.
