While fighting fakes and disinformation, the policy of “double standards” must be abandoned. It is important not to cross the thin line between this struggle and freedom of speech, experts say.
In the expert meeting “Fakes and disinformation in Central Asian countries. How to Fight It?” organized by the analytical platform CABAR.asia on February 18, was attended by experienced experts who have long worked in the media sphere and monitor new phenomena in the information space.
From Kazakhstan, they were Gulmira Birzhanova, an expert in national and international media law and co-founder of the Legal Media Center Public Foundation; Inga Sikorskaya, founder and program director of the School of Peacebuilding and Media Technology in Central Asia from Kyrgyzstan; Nuriddin Karshiboev, chairman of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT) and Daria Osmanova, co-founder and deputy director of the NGO Center for Development of Modern Journalism in Uzbekistan.
In the first part, the experts talked about the situation with fakes and disinformation in their countries, noting the general trend for all Central Asian countries – the spread of a huge number of fakes during the acute period of the Covid-19 pandemic, when people were frightened and did not know how and how to treat the unknown disease.
Meanwhile, fakes, trolls, haters, and social media leaks of disinformation are relatively new terms that already actively accompany every political event in the Central Asian countries.
Experience of Kazakhstan
For example, Gulmira Birzhanova noted that in Kazakhstan, just as in all other Central Asian countries, all fakes related to quarantine and covid were “harmless” at first. It was a “how to treat and what to protect yourself with” type of thing. But as the virus spread, the level of fakes about it became more complicated.
The authorities fought the fakes. At the time, an article was adopted from the Criminal Code – “dissemination of deliberately false information. An article that appeared specifically to prevent fakes during emergencies. Several people were prosecuted under it at the time, Birzhanova said.
But the situation drastically changed during another state of emergency in January 2022, when rallies and subsequent riots took place in Almaty and other cities in Kazakhstan. Now the authorities are not just threatening journalists and bloggers who criticize them, as they did before.
A media expert warns that the statistics of punishment of dissenters may change upwards.
“January protests and subsequent events in Kazakhstan have changed the agenda. Our state is struggling, but it seems to be struggling with the wrong thing… I think that in the last year the situation will change. We will see absolutely different statistics. Because quarantine emergencies and emergencies related to the January events will give a different picture. I am very sorry that now, after the January events, bloggers who were not spreading any provocative, appealing information, namely not false information, are caught spreading deliberately false information. They covered events from the site of the rallies and some of them want to be prosecuted under this article. I say that there is a legal mechanism, but the state uses it absolutely wrong”, – said Birzhanova.
Realities of Kyrgyzstan
Monitoring shows that a lot of fakes and a huge number of trolls arise during a period of acute political events, said Inga Sikorskaya, an expert from Kyrgyzstan.
She said that Kyrgyzstan has experienced six electoral processes in a year and a half, and all disinformation, fakes and trolling, all revolved around this topic, when opposing sides used “black PR.”
“Acute political events raise the heat of passion… Information is spread, for example, against a candidate – sold out Kyrgyz lands, allegedly on behalf of a famous some athlete, who demand to call this candidate to account so that he would not become a deputy…. There are often accusations of supporting social groups disapproved of in society… As soon as any political campaign ends, there is a decrease in the throwing in of fakes. All this has more to do with trolling,” said Inga Sikorskaya.
Meanwhile, in her opinion, there is a disproportionate response from the responsible government agencies to the spread of false information.
“There’s also a trend that’s troubling. There are a lot of trolling accounts, from which xenophobic appeals and trolling emanate, which goes unnoticed. And everyone knows from which accounts it comes, belonging to which political forces. But it goes unnoticed. While attention is focused on others. I mean, unnoticed by those bodies that are also engaged in monitoring and have to react to it somehow. This trend, I think, exists not only in Kyrgyzstan, but also in other countries,” Sikorskaya said.
Situation in Tajikistan
In Tajikistan, the beginning of the pandemic was marked by accusations against journalists that they were intimidating the public by reporting that coronavirus infections were appearing in one area or another. The authorities in the country concealed information about those who were ill at the beginning of the pandemic, even though journalists were already reporting on the occurrence of the disease in certain parts of the country.
Nuriddin Karshiboev, chairman of NANSMIT, said that during the pandemic, the authorities legally restricted the right of citizens to receive reliable information in Tajikistan.
In the summer of 2020, the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses were amended and supplemented for masking measures as well as for disseminating misleading information about diseases.
“It is noteworthy that in the year and a half that this rule has existed, not a single journalist has been able to be prosecuted under these articles. Nevertheless, the result is clear. The policy of self-censorship among journalists regarding coverage of covid issues has increased significantly,” Karshiboev said.
In addition, in the period of 2020 and 2021 there was a lot of fake news in the information space of Tajikistan, which concerned the events on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border and the situation in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. These fakes were mainly engaged in inciting xenophobic sentiments and contributed to the aggravation of the situation on the border and in the city of Khorog, the Tajik expert noted.
Unfortunately, during the crisis on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border, well-trained journalists were spreading fake news, Karshiboev noted. In his opinion, the level of media literacy among both the population and professional journalists in Central Asian countries leaves much to be desired.
The Picture in Uzbekistan
The situation is similar in Uzbekistan, where fake coronavirus stories have been migratory. They start in Kazakhstan, then move on to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, said Uzbek media expert Darya Osmanova.
“Now a whole wave of misinformation has appeared, which mainly concerns the dangers of vaccination. Society is trying to divide into two camps: those who are for vaccines and those who are against vaccines,” Osmanova said.
Unfortunately, there is not yet a large community in Uzbekistan that is dedicated to debunking fake reports, the media expert noted.
“Why are there no fact checkers in Uzbekistan? The format itself hasn’t caught on for some reason. We cannot understand why. We promote it everywhere, as part of all our activities – at the Center for Development of Modern Journalism, we talk about fact-checking, about the tools of fact-checking, we teach. But these are quite complicated, technologically sophisticated formats, apparently. Well, it still takes time for our journalists to understand how well this format appeals to the audience,” she said.
Conclusions and recommendations
Experts highlighted that blockades and lack of or concealment of official information have contributed to the large amount of unverified and false information. The level of media literacy in Central Asia is very low, even among trained journalists.
They suggest taking more systematic efforts to combat fake information and pay special attention to media literacy training and the development of critical thinking for different categories of the population, from children to older people.
- Fakes and related phenomena have flooded the information space and are being used more and more often.
- Tools for suppressing free speech under the guise of combating false information exist in every country. However, state authorities do not always use them lawfully.
- Use the available levers to combat fakes with caution so as not to violate freedom of speech and expression.
- Given the recent global trends, Central Asians are becoming victims of information wars, external throw-ins of false information and propaganda. People are disarmed in the face of these trends.
- Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen expert explanations to both journalists and the entire population and to train them in the elements of fact-checking.
- Concentrate on training journalists and the entire population, teaching them to distinguish between fakes that really threaten society and the audience, and where fakes are mixed with trolling.
- Pay special attention to the influence of hybrid wars. For example, in Central Asia, there are media blasts that affect the audience. Hybrid wars negatively affect both people and authorities.
- Introduce the experience of advanced countries in media literacy training and fact-checking.
- Use the power of big technology companies and global social networks to combat fakes.
The full version of the expert meeting can be viewed here: