Canetta: Pro-Russian disinformation in Serbia creates friction with other countries of the Western Balkans

Complex, considers the issue of disinformation in the Balkans, Tommaso Canetta, deputy director of “Pagella Politica”, which deals with the verification of facts. He tells The Geopost that Serbia and Russia are historically connected to each other and that pro-Russian disinformation is playing a large role within the public discourse in Serbia.

As a result of this, he emphasizes that frictions are created with other countries of the Western Balkans.

“As for the Balkans, the situation is very complex. I don’t have deep knowledge, of course, specifically about the situation in the Balkans, but we definitely know that the Serbian public opinion is closer to history and historical relations with Russia. So, pro-Russian disinformation is definitely playing a big role within the public discourse in Serbia, and this, of course, creates friction with other Western Balkan states,” he says.

Full interview:

The Geopost: Please tell us about Russian narratives and disinformation in the EU?

So, especially through the EDMO fact-checking network, we were able to detect many different narratives of disinformation circulating inside the European Union, and we define a disinformation narrative as the clear message that emerges from a consistent set of demonstrably false content. So, for example, Zelensky is a puppet of NATO. We detected many demonstrably false with the fact-checking methodology, content like pictures, images, false news, misleading statements, all conveying this message. So we can say this is a narrative. Of course, we should be aware of the fact that the disinformation narratives can overlap with an opinion. So it can be your legitimate opinion that Zelensky is a puppet of NATO, but still it’s also a disinformation narrative, given this short methodology introduction.

The main narratives that we are detecting right now are about, of course, the war in Ukraine, we have many disinformation coming from pro-Russian accounts, and they are sometimes directly linked to Russian owned state media or politicians but sometimes are very local, coming from political parties pundits, opinion leaders at the national level that share some world view or feelings or political opinion about the war in Ukraine. Then of course we have a lot of disinformation recently about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, but that dropped quite quickly. So it was very high as a percentage on the total detected disinformation in October, but already in November it started dropping.

While disinformation about Ukraine was very high, especially in March, April 2022, and then again it started decreasing because after some time usually the crisis become, let’s say, normalized also in the information cycle of news, and so the disinformation as well tends to drop. We have a lot of disinformation also about climate change, it’s one of the topics that we had. A lot of disinformation during the years of the pandemic, of course it was the pandemic the main topic of this information and we also track disinformation about the EU, about migrants, about LGBTQ plus communities so these topics.

About specifically Ukraine, the narratives, I’d say they didn’t evolve that much since the beginning of the war and they’re mainly aimed at justifying the Russian aggression against Ukraine. So, for example, there is this longstanding narrative of the genocide of the Russian-speaking population in the Donbas. And if we look at the numbers, the death of civilians in Donbass immediately before the war, according to the United Nations, an institution that Russia is a member of, were very low, like 25 people, 26 people, so definitely not a genocide. And this is just an example. Another very long-standing narrative, of course, is the smear campaign against Volodymyr Zelensky, who is portrayed as corrupt, addicted to power, addicted to substances, so cocaine and so on, politician, to discredit his image and also his wife. We had some disinformation narratives targeting Ukrainian refugees inside the EU. They are violent, they are parasites. The member states of the EU treats better these refugees than their own citizens and so on. These are, I’d say, the main ones. I hope I’m not forgetting nothing major. And of course, regarding the Balkans, the situation is very complex. I don’t have a deep knowledge, of course, specifically on just the Balkan situation, but definitely we know that, you know, the Serbia public opinion, it’s closer for history and historical relation with Russia. So pro-Russian disinformation is definitely playing a big role inside the public discourse in Serbia, and that, of course, creates friction with the other Western Balkan states.

The Geopost: Which is the biggest challenge of fact-checkers and journalists?

I think that we have some friction because sometimes traditional media they spread misinformation, so not voluntarily usually, sometimes disinformation, so voluntarily, and we as fact-checkers, we don’t look in the face of anyone. So, we fact check politician, media, social media accounts, and so on. And if we have to point out that a piece of information published by a traditional media is false, we definitely do so. That, of course, creates some friction. But I think that the need of cooperation between fact checking organizations and traditional media is much, much bigger, because in the end, if a citizen should inform himself or herself somewhere, it’s best to rely on traditional media and not on alternative media. Of course this can change from country to country. We know that in some countries the let’s say state-owned media are too close to the political power and so in the end they spread propaganda. But in general, I think it’s safe to say that traditional media are still the best option if you want to inform yourself. And so, we need to cooperate with them also because if we have probably a better knowledge of how to do fact-checking, how to fight disinformation, they definitely have a bigger reach, so we can reach as fact-checkers at a national level maybe hundreds of thousands of people. A public television can reach tens of millions of people inside Italy, for example. So, the need for a partnership is definitely there and I really hope that we will keep on exploring this world.

/The Geopost