The government could adopt a strategy to fight hoaxes in its manifesto, caretaker Premier Ludovit Odor said after meeting European Commission Vice-President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova on Monday. "I think the government will adopt in its manifesto a coherent strategy on how to disseminate truthful information, combat hoaxes and on how we can introduce more critical and strategic thinking and encourage fact-checking in schools," said the premier.
Odor noted that according to several surveys, Slovakia ranks unflatteringly low in terms of belief in conspiracy theories. "I personally do not think that there are so many Slovaks who have extremist views. Partially to blame for this is the fact that we have neglected the fight against disinformation over the last decade and these people receive only biased information from often unverified sources and deliberately distorted facts, and so cannot properly assess what the real situation is," he noted. The fight against disinformation, according to Jourova, is crucial for the European Commission. She pointed out that a large amount of illegal content, such as child pornography, hate speech and extremist content, is disseminated to society via the internet.
"At the same time, we see that the influence of misinformation and manipulation is increasing," she said. Slovaks, Jourova added, should have better options. "If only manipulative messages and disinformation campaigns reach them, then it is no wonder that they tend to believe them," she remarked, stressing that she wants fact-checking and not censorship and crackdowns on opinions. "There is room for education in media literacy in Slovakia and to make people aware that not everything they read on the internet is true," she said.
Source: TASR
