At the beginning of the year, Sweden established the Agency for Psychological Defense, which actually protects citizens from fake news and attempts at malicious external influence. Currently – mostly Russian and Chinese. In Serbia, such a thing would not be possible, say “fact checkers” journalists. They think that it is not good for any country to engage in such business, and they say that the Russian influence in our country is a “domestic product”.
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, and with it the invasion of propaganda, the Swedish state realized that the times are such that it needs an agency that will protect the common sense of the nation. They founded the Agency for Psychological Defense, and its job description is fighting fake news and manipulation.
“I found it very problematic, even if it came from the Swedish state, which we assume has stronger institutions and less room for corruption,” says Marija Vučić, a journalist for the Raskrikanvanje website.
It has 45 employees, in offices in two cities, and has been fighting for nine months against the flow of disinformation that could harm Swedish society. It is written on the agency’s website that it refers to external factors. Mostly to China and Russia, foreign media write.
What results have been given so far by the fight against fake news and who are these external factors that have proven to be the biggest threat to the information of Swedish society, we do not know. We hope that in the fight against manipulation they are more effective than in answering journalists ‘ questions from Serbia, because during the past three days they have not found time to answer us.
And we asked the journalists who are involved in exposing falsehoods in our media space, whether it would be a good solution if the state helps them in this work.
“For us, if something like this happens, it would be a complete disaster,” Vucic said.
“In the circumstances that Serbia is currently in, we can interpret it as a potential reason for censorship, a reason for conflict with political dissenters or those who express their views contrary to the views of the authorities”, assesses the editor of the site Fake News Tragač Stefan Janjić.
In 2018, when the establishment of the agency was first mentioned in Sweden, a similar idea came to our then Minister of innovation Nenad Popović. His innovative proposal to journalists sounded very problematic.
Disinformation for the benefit of the state
“Who would sit in that working body to decide? I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here dealing with disinformation in a way that I would say is ok, professional. It would be those people who spread disinformation for the benefit of the state,“ explains Marija Vučić.
Disinformation in favor of the state of Russia has long spread in Serbia, long before the war in Ukraine, journalists and researchers noted.
“Unlike some countries in which Russia had to invest funds in order to report in accordance with the Kremlin’s policy, I think that the process in Serbia was somehow spontaneous,” Janjic said.
“We have tabloids that run this Russophile policy, of course, because it relies very well on the sentiment of people who love Putin and hate the West because of the bombing and whatever,” Vucic said.
“Today I think that the government is somewhere a prisoner of that narrative that has been created over the last ten years. So today, even if there was a desire to make some kind of departure from Russia, it is very difficult because you have public opinion that has been fed by this Russian narrative for years,“ says politicologist Vuk Velebit.
Public opinion through pro-government tabloids continues to be fed the Russian narrative. He wholeheartedly supports Vladimir Putin, even though, Velebit thinks, by condemning the Russian aggression against Ukraine in the United Nations, Serbia distanced itself from that brotherly country for the first time.
“And maybe we can expect that in the coming period, Russia will look for some ways and models to continue projecting its influence and to show that it still means something in this region,” adds Velebit.
Media literacy
Maybe she already found a way. According to earlier announcements, Russia today television, a Kremlin-controlled media, is coming to Serbia. The European Union has suspended the broadcasting of Sputnik and its programs since March. This is also expected from Serbia.
“Should the Russian media come here, I would say why not. A well-packaged propaganda will come and now it is up to the viewer, and it is up to us journalists to expose what is propaganda and what is real criticism,“ says Alexandra Godfroa, journalist of the foreign policy newsroom of television N1.
None of these three journalists is in favor of banning the work of one media outlet. They are also convinced that trying to stop any kind of news, even fake news, is futile.
“People who mistrust to some extent, in some area, according to the information that comes from traditional channels or from the official media, look for and search for that other information. And if you stopped that moderate channel searching for such information, it will come to that radical channel that you have no chance of controlling,” says Godfroa.
As the only possible, slower way of combating fake news journalists see media literacy. Even more advanced countries do not have effective solutions, they say, because it is a slippery slope.
“And many will slip before we come to any possible solution,” Janjic concluded./N1