Fake news about Ukraine in Serbian tabloids: In the information war, the truth becomes irrelevant

It is difficult today to answer the question of whether a war of information is being waged in the background of a real war, or whether a real war of arms is being waged in the background of a war of information. The war in Ukraine actually confirmed the thesis that false information is on the front line and that it is the most difficult to get to the truth.

“In the end, the truth becomes irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the duel that takes place on social networks “, says in an interview for the Voice of America Stefan Janjic from the FakeNews portal “Tragac”, which deals with fake news in the Serbian media.

According to him, the coronavirus pandemic is an ideal background for spreading false news, and the Ukrainian crisis is a real battlefield where all parties to the conflict use false news as a legitimate weapon

“In the previous days, we had a handful of those photos and videos that are either outdated, or from some other location, or misinterpreted. “Even some bizarre cases where certain sequences from video games, or certain sequences from some series, such as Game of Thrones, are presented as authentic records from the battlefield,” Janjic points out, emphasizing that it is almost impossible to determine what is in the domestic media fake news”, and what is truth.

The front page of the “Informer”, published a few days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is the best example of how far the creators of fake news are ready to go. The headline “Ukraine invaded Russia” did not go unnoticed, says the interlocutor of the Voice of America

“The front page where the “Informer” announces that Ukraine has invaded Russia has attracted the attention of the world media as an example of an unbelievable absurdity, in fact I don’t even know what I could check. It is so absurd to fact-check, that is, the discipline of fact-checking, remains powerless in the face of such information.”

With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the local tabloids went a step further, taking over from the Russian media entire texts about the alleged crimes of the Ukrainians in Donbas and Lugansk. Earlier this week, tabloids and portals in Serbia and Montenegro carried an article about what Russian soldiers found after entering Donbas, claiming that mass graves with nearly 300 victims had been discovered, which were allegedly committed by the Ukrainian Nazis against the Russian population.

At first glance, it can be seen that the text does not cite sources for the allegations made, nor does it have interlocutors who talk about alleged crimes, and according to Stefan Janjic, the editorial board of FakeNews “Tragac” did not deal with these texts and did not check the data

“Often when I talk to my colleagues from abroad, they wonder how much money Russia is investing in Russian propaganda in Serbia, and I can’t, of course, answer that question because I don’t have precise information, but it seems to me that it doesn’t need to invest any money.” due to the fact that tabloids see a very clear profit to publish this type of information, this type of interpretation “, Janjic points out and adds that such articles cannot explicitly help Russia, but are stories for the audience in Serbia that accepts such narratives.

Although Serbia has officially supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine, according to the interlocutor of the Voice of America, it is obvious that the tabloids have continued to support Russia explicitly, that there is joy between the lines because of that war, because it is a kind of discourse that they have nurtured for years and wished for some kind of conflict to happen, Janjic points out.

“If we start just with the way the images of these actors are shown on the front pages of domestic tabloids, those famous filters they use if you want to portray someone as an enemy with strong color contrast, so you can literally portray them as Hitler, and on the other hand is the winner, someone who is powerful, in this case Putin. So everything is so one-sided, everything is so biased, that it seems to me that any appeal, a call to streamline the content and harmonize with the principles of professional reporting with the Code of Journalists of Serbia, that all this is in vain and that unfortunately these frighteningly biased and inaccurate contents have a very wide audience here in Serbia.”

According to him, there are no undecided people in the Serbian media – there are only those who are more careful in what they publish and those who are less careful.