We have to think about information which we want to believe, says Miloš Gregor

People could visit a public lecture about fake news organized by The Department of Political Science of Masaryk University and Czech Television in the University Cinema Scala last Wednesday. The visitors saw and heard reporters Marek Wollner and Jakub Železný from Czech Television, a teacher and sociologist Barbora Vacková and political scientists Miloš Gregor. Discussion was moderated also by political scientist Stanislav Balík. “We don’t have to emphasize the meaning of this event because fake news influences public, private and scientific debates, and politics,” Balík said in the beginning. 

Marek Wollner gave a speech first and he spoke about the disinformation website aeronet.cz, which wrote about the new versions of the national anthem and he reminded the article Hitler is Gentleman. “When people read some information which is the same as their opinion, they believe it more than the opposite arguments. For example, when smoker reads that cigarettes are not so much harmful,”Wollner said.

Miloš Gregor, who collaborated on the book The best book about Fake news!!!, continued and agreed with Wollner, “We have to be able to verify the sources and we must think about information which we want to believe, if they are objective,” Gregor said.

Jakub Železný analysed his interview with the governor of Pardubice Region Martin Netolický and he showed how he tried to do fake news live. “I do not know what fake news is because I do not read fake news and I do not produce fake news. So, I would like to speak about attempt to do fake news about Czech Television by Martin Netolický,” introduced Železný his part of the lecture.

Barbora Vacková spoke about media education and she noted that it is a cross-sectional topic. “Language teachers should explain genres, history teachers should teach about the role of media in history and civics teachers should tell students about propaganda,” Vacková said.

A full hall listened to the discussion including a student of Political Science and Journalism Patrik Švec. “I enjoyed the lecture so much. I appreciate the choice of the guests who explained grippingly the problems of fake news.”

Apart from the fact that the speakers introduced their experiences with fake news, they answered the questions from the audience. People had asked guests for example about NATO and its defence against the disinformation from Russia or about the punishments for spreading fake news. According to the debaters, it is very difficult to punish someone for fake news when we live in the democracy and we have a freedom of speech.