Montenegro marks this year’s World Fact-Checking Day in an atmosphere of rampant misinformation, false narratives, and deception of citizens, whose consequence is an evident undermining of democracy, human rights, and risk to public health.
While eagerly anticipating the announced changes to the set of media laws that do not look promising in the fight against misinformation, during the past month, citizens who read (un)registered news portals and listened to broadcasts of the Public Broadcasting Service were exposed to a series of misinformation about NATO bombing, suspicious circumstances of Slobodan Milosevic’s death, the Minister of Defense’s alleged calls for the occupation of the Western Balkans by NATO, denial of genocide, along with a series of other unverified information, half-truths, unsigned articles or articles signed by “someone from the crowd.”
As usual, social networks abounded with claims vaccines cause various diseases and that people die from them, all while facing the threat of a measles epidemic, a disease that was virtually eradicated in the last century.
All of the above have been persistent issues for many years. During that time, several governments have changed, including their political ideologies and ideologies, prime ministers, ministers, and members of parliament. However, the only thing that has not changed is the indolent attitude towards the burning issue of misinformation that Montenegro has not yet fought against. In some cases, it even inadvertently supports such disinformation, as evidenced by advertisements and banners from state-owned enterprises appearing on online platforms disseminating disinformation.
The editorial team of Raskrinkavanje congratulates Fact-Checking Day to all those who do not want to tolerate misinformation and false narratives and those who want action against them, with a reminder that yesterday, April 1st, became a day like any other, characterized by the dissemination of misinformation to the public through the media and social networks.
Darvin Muric, Editor-in-chief of Raskrinkavanje