Radio România Internațional

Tag: misinformation

  • December 9, 2024

    December 9, 2024

    WEATHER Meteorologists have forecast warmer weather than usual for the entire Romanian territory until January 6th. According to the National Administration of Meteorology, rain showers are expected in the country’s south, east and the regions between the Carpathians. The first winter month includes several weather phenomena such as snowfalls and blizzard most likely in the south and eastern Moldavia. Moderate showers are expected today and snow falls in the mountains. In Bucharest, the sky is overcast with moderate wind and highs of 11 degrees Celsius. The noon reading in Bucharest was 8 degrees.

     

    TIKTOK The Defence Ministry in Bucharest has pointed out new cases of online misinformation, mainly on the TikTok platform. According to the Defence Ministry’s portal known as InfoRadar, Romania’s borders and port infrastructure have been targeted this time. One of the posts falsely states that Romania is going to close its borders and beef them up with military troops and the other presents military equipment that the Romanian army actually doesn’t possess, which has allegedly been deployed to the port of Constanta. The aforementioned posts were aimed at spreading the fake news that Romania is actually getting ready for war. The Ministry has described the information as false adding that its structures will continue to signal any cases of misinformation identified. The National Audio-visual Council and the National Authority for Communication Administration and Regulation have reminded the TikTok, Meta, X and Google platforms the obligations they have on combating misinformation, under the European regulation in the field.

     

    ASYLUM According to the Russian state press, the ousted president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his family are presently in Russia where they have been granted political asylum. A top-ranking Russian official has also confirmed the news. Syrian sources had earlier announced the dictator’s plane could have crashed while the city was being taken over by the rebel forces. The insurgents’ leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa said the public institutions would remain for a while under the surveillance of the country’s former Prime-Minister. Syria’s Premier Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali says he is ready to support the continuity of governance. According to commentators, being busy with the invasion of Ukraine and the conflict with Israel respectively, Russia and Iran, the main supporters of the Assad regime during the last decade’s civil war, didn’t have significant interventions against the rebels this time.

     

    MAE The fall of the dictatorial regime in Damascus is marking a historic moment and a watershed point for the Syrian people, which was subjected to suffering and oppression, the Romanian Foreign Ministry says in a press release. According to the same sources, “Romania reiterates its support for Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time it voices hope that all Syrian people are going to have a free, safe and prosperous future, in which all the citizen rights are respected, including those of the minorities, the same communiqué also says.

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  • Election and Misinformation

    Election and Misinformation

    The European Commission has kicked off an information campaign for citizens on the risks posed by misinformation and information handling by players from outside the European Union. The Brussels’ move comes after a survey it made over the social networks Facebook and Instagram, which it accuses of failing to comply with their obligations on fighting misinformation. In this context, the EU Executive has launched an audio-video clip to be broadcast on all the press channels in all the member states before the elections for the EU Parliament. The 30 second clip is advising the voters to have a critical attitude towards the content distributed by the online media, analyze and don’t believe everything they read.

    Voters must be aware the video and audio materials can contain fake or incomplete information especially at this time marked by the accelerated development of the AI programmes. Another piece of advice is that they should check information and rely on trusted sources, such as the main stream press and not on sites, blogs or other social media disseminating various opinions and rumors instead of verified information.

    Last but not least, European citizens should avoid conveying unverified information so that they themselves may not become a misinformation channel. The informative clip, which is going to appear on media channels in Romania as well by the end of this month, comes against the election campaign for the local and EU Parliament election, which kicked off in Romania on May 10th. We recall that it’s for the first time when Romanians will be voting for their local administration and their favourite MEPs on the same day, June 9th.

    For 30 days from now on, discriminatory messages and slogans or those inciting to hate and intolerance as well as other forms of defamation are strictly forbidden.

    The Central Election Office is firmly recommending to election contenders to obey the general rules of the campaign have a balanced, sincere and constructive discourse and avoid distorted and manipulated information in order to be able to prevent the dissemination of fake news or other forms of derailment that may hinder the good functioning of the election process. The head of the Permanent Election Authority, Toni Greblă, has announced that roughly 21 million ballot papers have been printed, and that for the first time ever 900 polling stations will be set up in foreign countries upon the request of the Romanian communities living in those countries.

    The official has also pointed out that Romanians also have access to the “Code of Good Practices regarding Misinformation” as well as the “Guide for the Prevention and Combating Misinformation Actions Targeting Voters’, available on the websites of the Central Election Office and the Permanent Election Authority.

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  • Measures to counteract the fake news phenomenon

    Measures to counteract the fake news phenomenon

    Is “fake news a misleading term? In the opinion of many, it should be replaced with that of “misinformation, which implies the intention to deceive. Adopted by public discourse with the most recent presidential elections in the United States, fake news has become a phenomenon with global effects, with the authorities and specialists worried about the consequences it may have.



    Fake news, the term perhaps not the most suitably used to refer to misinformation, has always existed. The public became more clearly aware of the spread of this phenomenon during the scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica consultancy firm, which was accused of manipulating many Facebook accounts to influence the result of elections in a number of countries. Andreea Gavrila, one of the founders of rubrika.ro, Romanias first reliable provider of automated news analysis, told Radio Romania:



    Andreea Gavrila: “The term ‘fake news is not always accurate, in the sense that we cannot regard falsehood as the counterpart of truth. In this sense, fake news is not necessarily news, is not necessarily fake, it can always have a grain of truth, which means that we could translate this type of news as counterfeit news, misinformation and informational disorder, which encapsulates very well the subject of fake news. So I believe we should highlight the fact that we are not dealing necessarily with untrue news, all the more so as fake news is very likely to contain a grain of truth.



    The development of the online environment and of social networks, the dependence on them and the exclusively online media consumption are factors that favour the expansion of the fake news phenomenon. A wide range of media products can be put in this category. And if you are a teenager, you are even more exposed to misinformation.



    According to a survey carried out by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, ordinary persons, meaning persons who are not specialised in this field, tend to classify as fake news a whole range of products, from parody, which functions as counterfeit information but not with the intention to manipulate, badly produced news owing to poor journalism, biased news, some advertising and hyper-politicised content, to invented news. The conclusion of the report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is that the definition of fake news is so broad that it becomes inoperative. That is why it proposes that we give up the term “fake news because it is misleading and use instead “misinformation, which implies the intention to deceive. Ioana Avadani, the director of the Centre of Independent Journalism, embraces the idea:



    Ioana Avadani: “I have quite well-grounded reservations about the use of the term ‘fake news, although it represents a linguistic shortcut for the phenomenon. Not all fake news we are exposed to is news. Not all fake news we are exposed to comes from journalists. The term directly refers to news, to journalism, to the professional area, and I find this unfair.



    How can we protect ourselves from fake news? Critical thinking and media education are two of the “weapons that can be used successfully in counteracting the phenomenon of fake news and misinformation. According to rubrika.ro, this means we should try to find more information from different sources, to react, to find reliable sources of information, instead of simply limiting ourselves to the information we get online. Also, we should at all times check who the real authors of the online news are, and, very importantly, whether the respective website has a physical address and a phone number, Ioana Adavani says.



    In an awareness raising effort, the Centre for Independent Journalism has been running, for the last 25 years, educational projects for high school students, to show them how the media works. “We are part of a handful of NGOs that do this kind of thing. We believe it is crucial that, if you have at one end a media system that functions according to certain norms, you should have at the other end a group of consumers who are aware of these norms, says Ioana Avadani. In Romania, the phenomenon is mainly found in the online environment, because the audiovisual media are regulated by the National Audiovisual Council, which can impose fines for failure to respect the norms.



    (translated by: Cristina Mateescu)

  • December 7, 2017

    December 7, 2017

    KING MICHAEL – Every evening until December 10 religious services will be held at King Michaels residence in Switzerland, where he spent most of his life in exile and where he also died, the Royal House announced. In the country, Romanians continue to bring flowers and candles in front of the former royal palace in Bucharest and at the Elisabeta Palace, the late Kings residence in the capital city. King Michaels body will be flown to the country on Wednesday, December 13, and placed at the Peles Castle in Sinaia, in the southern Carpathians. On the evening of the same day, the coffin will be brought to the Royal Palace in Bucharest. The funeral will take place on Saturday, December 16, in Curtea de Arges, southern Romania, where all Romanias former kings are interred. The Government declared a national mourning on December 14, 15 and 16. On Monday, December 11, the joint chambers of the Romanian Parliament will pay tribute to the former sovereign in a solemn session. The King of Romania between 1940 and 1947, Michael I passed away on Tuesday, at the age of 96.




    PROTESTS – Hundreds of people last night picketed the building of the Romanian Parliament, to protest the changes brought to the law on the status of magistrates, which were subject to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies. Traffic in the area was disrupted and incidents were reported, involving the protesters and the police. Unplanned protests were also held in the cities of Cluj Napoca, in the north-west, and Constanta in the south-east. The participants demanded that the Social Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea step down as Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, given that he has already received a suspended sentence and is prosecuted in two other cases. MPs from Power and Opposition also traded insults and invectives during the meeting.




    BUDGET LAW – Leaders of the Romanian Parliament are to set today a roadmap for the endorsement of the 2018 state budget law. The bill was passed by the Government on Wednesday, and is based on a forecast economic growth rate of 5.5% and a 3.1% annual inflation rate. Prime Minister Mihai Tudose said it was the first time that the countrys GDP exceeded 200 billion euros, which would allow for salary and pension increases.




    DIPLOMACY – The US Ambassador to Bucharest, Hans Klemm, accuses Moscow of conducting misinformation campaigns aimed at generating confusion and division among NATO member states. Taking advantage of our democratic societies, Russia seeks to influence public opinion and often to influence elections as well, by disseminating fake news, the American diplomat said at a public debate organised in the north-western city of Cluj. On the other hand, he once again called on Romania to further fight corruption and defend the independence of the judiciary.




    MIDDLE EAST – US President Donald Trumps recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel triggered strong international condemnation. The UN Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting on Friday, at the request of 8 members, including the UK and France. The Arab League announced an emergency meeting on Saturday. All Palestinian organisations criticized the move and called for strikes and protests, while many countries in the region warned that the decision would entail religious tensions. Turkey threatened to break ties with Israel. Another US ally, Saudi Arabia, slammed Trumps decision as “irresponsible. Traditional US allies from Europe also voiced opposition to the move, whereas Russia and China have expressed concerns that conflicts in the region will be exacerbated.





    HANDBALL – Romanias womens handball team is playing tonight against Angola, in Group A of the World Championships hosted by Germany. The Romanians have already secured their qualification in the round of 16, after having defeated Paraguay, Slovenia and Spain. On Friday they will play the last match in the group, against France. Romania won the bronze medal in the 2015 championship, and is the only team to have taken part in all the 22 world championship final tournaments so far.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)