From Bill Gates’ theories behind the Covid19 pandemic to the fake news linking 5G technology to the corona virus, Macedonian citizens have been exposed to hundreds of fake pandemic news. All this affected the citizens to lose faith in the institutions, some of the patients to hide the symptoms or not to appear for medical needs despite the aggravated condition. Rosana Aleksoska, who is leading a project to verify the facts and fight against fake news, says propaganda in North Macedonia was part of a broader campaign that has spread to almost every country in the world.
ROSANA ALEKSOSKA, FIGHTING FAKE NEWS NARRATIVES “During our monitoring, we encountered many conspiracy theories which were generally spread globally, but are often given a local context. I want to emphasize to the citizens that the purpose of misinformation is not to convince the citizens of a conspiracy theory. But misinformation works in order to provide citizens with different conspiracy theories. The more conspiracy theories, the more citizens will be confused and distrustful. The end result is a decline in citizens ‘trust in institutions and processes.
”Former President of the Association of Journalists of North Macedonia Naser Selmani says the propaganda has found fertile ground in the country, as citizens’ trust in the media and institutions has long been in place decrease.
NASER SELMANI, former president of Journalists ‘ Association “Here in Macedonia, citizens do not trust institutions, media. You have the latest IRI survey which shows that the vast majority of citizens, over 60 percent do not trust the institutions and this has made it difficult to fight against fake news. In fact, when people do not trust the institutions and someone creates lies or lies based on this mistrust, these frauds are passed on to the public. During this pandemic, North Macedonia again became a topic in the world media for fake news factories. NBC News reported that the social network Facebook has shut down one of the largest conspiracy theories, which used content from fake news factories in northern Macedonia and the Philippines.
The link to the original article by Euronews Albania can be found here.
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This project was funded in part through a U.S. Embassy grant. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the implementers/authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government.
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