Polish People's Association calls for joint action against disinformation

Participants at the fourth Media of the Future conference organised by PAP have highlighted the importance of joint action to deal with the problem of fake news and disinformation.

PAP President Wojciech Surmacz cited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said on the first day of Russia's invasion: "When you attack us you will see our faces, not our backs," he said.

The PAP president said it was not necessary to travel to Ukraine to meet that evil. It's enough to read or watch the news to smell the smell of lies, propaganda and fake news, Surmacz said. How do I tell her to the world? We will try to find an answer to that question today. We will see if we will be successful. It is not easy to do, but I believe it is possible. The PAP president conducted a debate on 'War in the media during which European Alliance of News Agencies Secretary-General Alexandru Giboi stated that the public have not been through media school and do not fully know how the media works.

He said that the solution is two-fold: educating journalists and training the public in how to use the media, otherwise it will be very difficult to manage the situation.

The Polish plenipotentiary for GovTech, Justyna Orlowska, said that education plays a key role in the decision. We do it together with PAP and NGOs. She said that we organise meetings where students can win prizes for identifying fake news.

The chief foreign editor of Ukrainian agency Ukrinform, Nataliia Kostina, described the problem of disinformation as sophisticated, commenting that even politicians in the West did not know how to counteract fake news.