President Nicușor Dan participates on Wednesday in the opening of a summit on combating disinformation, organized within the initiative of the NGO Romania Imună, at the Cotroceni Palace.
The NGO Romania Imună presents, on Wednesday, at the Cotroceni Palace, “The national report on disinformation from social networks in Romania”event organized under the patronage of the Presidential Administration.
President Nicușor Dan gave a speech at this event.
The President said that it is important that, in this very important endeavor, state institutions, civil society, and the private sector work together.
“Disinformation is not just a matter of democracy, it’s not just a matter of ethics, it’s a matter of prosperity. There is a correlation between trust within a society and the prosperity of that society. Disinformation there attacks, at the level of mutual trust within a society. Today’s disinformation is no longer a succession of ad hoc operations, is coordinated, multi-layered and technology-based. The response to it must be equally coordinated”said Nicușor Dan at the opening of the event.
Nicușor Dan also said that it is not only about politics, but disinformation is also in the medical area, which costs resources and even lives, but also in the economic area, of the safety of women, victims of abuse.
“Actually, what is disinformation in relation to democracy? What is democracy? Very briefly, democracy means people trying to legitimately influence each other to make the best decisions for them as a society together. And what is disinformation? It means to pervert this mechanism, that is, to artificially unbalance the hierarchy of arguments and introduce some factually false elements that, by promoting them, you make true. And in this way, attack democracy itself. And then, we have to look at those mechanisms that pervert a hierarchy of values and legitimate actions that society produces for itself, without touching the possibility of the citizen to express any idea, opinion, evaluation he wants.” according to Nicușor Dan.
What should the state do?
“First of all, to communicate coherently and strategically, and, if possible, humanely and not propagandistically, as, unfortunately, the politician, encouraged by consultants, often does. And then, when he communicates, he must go where the public is, because we see that all of us politicians are on talk shows, we argue with each other, and there are others on TikTok. And some are the topics we debate among ourselves on TV, and others are the topics that people debate on TikTok. And sometimes it seems ridiculous to journalists to ask a politician a question that 30% of people are already convinced is a reality on social networks. So, on the one hand, the state institutions must communicate objectively. On the other hand, they need to be able to go where the audience is and be able to respond at the rate at which different segments of the audience expect to receive a response.”the president also sent.
The head of state mentioned to me that there is a need for cooperation between institutions, we need to understand what others have done well.
