Disinformation During the Pandemic: How Can the Visegrad Countries Combat It Successfully?
What can be said about disinformation in Europe in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic? Can we observe any specific changes in the nature of this phenomenon? And how do authoritarian countries strive to use the pandemic for making propaganda?
I think the current public health crisis has provided fertile ground for the deployment of manipulated information. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a period full of uncertainty and doubts in society. Such circumstances tend to lead to fostering manipulation of narratives by malign actors who want to exploit this uncertainty.
Russia and China, as well as Iran to certain extent, used the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to interfere into democratic discourse and to present themselves as internationally responsible actors, while at the same time undermining democracy's capacity to tackle the pandemic effectively.
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