[Music]
this is 2012 Slovakia a conspiracy
theory Johanna justice was born it
accused Germany friends and Nordic
countries of the most brutal tyranny in
the human history it described a
multinational system in which state
authorities are stealing children from
healthy and normal families it started
spreading quite quickly it was on
numerous websites and social media
accounts and at one point in even
reached a mainstream TV station people
starting signing petitions against it
four years later another conspiracy was
born in Germany these are case even
blogger a reporter at the first channel
Russian Kremlin owned accused a group of
asylum seekers of raping a young German
Russian girl Lisa the story was quickly
debunked but it was already too late it
caused media storm within few days
thousands of Russian speakers took to
the streets to protest against what they
perceived was a cover-up by by German
police and against America and her
immigration policy neither of the two
story that I gave you are based on truth
both were fake if both were able to
mobilize people and change their social
behavior and there are hundreds if not
thousands of such stories all around
Europe every day in every country but
this is not really a new phenomenon I
mean propaganda is the old method the
word propagate I’m used in the 17th
century it was used for propagating
Catholic Church in non-ketotic lands and
also war propaganda was used by cables
in the in the second world war by
Soviets during the Cold War but the
current phenomenon of this information
is different from these examples from
the past it doesn’t seek to propagate an
ideology or a party or an idea
it rather tries to destroy what has
already been built it tries to undermine
the trust of people toward democracy and
towards institutions towards Western
values towards the politicians towards
everything
it is very destructive it mobilized
people against something rather than for
something but also conspiracy so has
always been here I mean there’s always a
part of society that likes to believe
that everything is different then they
tell us in 2006 when they did opinion
poll in the United States they found
that 36% of Americans believed that the
United States government was behind the
9/11 terrorist attacks and this number
was actually quite high also in the
countries of Europe but having said that
still the 2014 when the war in Ukraine
started was a turning point because
suddenly this phenomenon became much
more target oriented much more
sophisticated and much more active so
suddenly you had all those stories of
fastest in Kiev and that the bodies of
dead children being trading in don’t
bother at all over Europe in 2015 the
same media started to exploit
immigration crisis vilifying immigrants
and exaggerating already existent
problem and I think this made it really
much more effective because because they
were able to use one of the most
powerful weapons people’s emotions and
fear and once the debate gets to the
emotional level people stop listening to
arguments I have been fascinated by this
phenomenon for years I work as an
analyst in a thing done in Prague where
I have created and now leads the
Institute initiative to to study and to
understand this phenomenon for my first
study I got a hundred of the examples of
conspiracies in this information to
understand the the main trends and and
the characteristics of it to understand
it with our team in Prague we are
organizing events discussions all kinds
of conferences to bring more people and
ideas to this topic
because only by fully understanding such
a such a complex and complicated
phenomenon you can then proposes
solutions the right solutions I also
work with a different team in Kiev a
team of IT developers with them we are
trying to develop more innovative
solutions to this problem so like apps
or platforms I try to bridge the world
of think tanks and long reports with the
world of IT innovation and new
technologies a year ago I moved to her
keys a city in eastern Ukraine
it’s also a place that is very close to
the war in Donbass and their information
kills people
10,000 people have died in a conflict in
which separatists and Russia are using
propaganda in this information to spark
anger among locals but what I realized
there and by studying other countries as
well is that this information and
propaganda can be a very powerful weapon
it can be a decisive weapon but what
makes it really effective is a number of
factors it’s a socio criminal situation
it’s the history of a place
Donbass has been neglected for decades
it lacked development investment into
infrastructure and into people in many
problems had B unresolved their
frustration has been high for a long
time also unemployment is high all these
things have created grievances that were
later exploited by Russia and by
separatists and you may now say that
Dumba’s is quite an extreme case and
that it’s true there’s war in Ukraine
but look at for example Slovakia my home
country where I was born
Slovakia is on the forefront of
disinformation attacks there are around
50 websites that are actively spreading
pro-russian and anti Western
disinformation Slovakia has got also
problem with the growing extremism the
codelab a party which is the neo-nazi
party go to the Parliament the 8% last
year but when they recently asked Slav
us what is the number one concern
it was corruption the current government
in Slovakia is going from
one corruption scandal to another again
many problem has been unresolved
there are many regions which are
underdeveloped education system has been
under finance it is much easier to
manipulate dissatisfied people than
happy people but now I’d like to be a
little bit more optimistic I think this
information propaganda and manipulation
online poses an immense threat to our
society but I also believed West is much
more innovative and it can advance much
faster than the other side which is
getting much more predictable for us
there are solutions we just have a lot
of homework to do first high awareness
is crucial according to research people
who understand the logic of the
manipulative techniques and of
propaganda are then more likely to
become resistant to it once they’re
exposed to it the high where Nisour in
the society is very important so they
understand so everybody understand this
is harmful for us so that politicians
and policymakers are talking about it
openly acknowledge the problem and
condemn the source this is important
it’s also important that the media and
the civil society it is investigating
this so who is behind it what are their
motives who’s organizing it and why and
if they’re they are breaking the law
then there should be illegal actions but
at the same time we are focusing on the
problem itself we should also think
about what it exploits on the ground and
I gave you examples from from Donbass
from Slovakia and I can come up with
many more understanding that the
disinformation is exploiting our own
weaknesses is crucial if you want to
come up with a strategy that is the
least complex and comprehensive because
if we don’t make our society’s
resilience we will remain vulnerable to
manipulation forever
today in my mostly come from Russia and
Isis but the same methods can be used
tomorrow by anybody
by terrorists by extremists by populace
by politicians anybody in the world of
Internet and social media it is very
easy to manipulate people to spread a
harmful idea through Internet and only a
strong educated and confident society
can withstand information attacks and
look at the countries where for example
this information is less effective
Finland itself is a case in point
Finland is under immense disinformation
attacks every day but it’s able to
withstand it much better than other
countries and there are a number of
reasons for this first there’s this high
awareness so so the society in Finland
they talk about this this phenomenon
quite a lot politicians government civil
society media but the high wordless is
only part of a bigger picture
Finland’s got one of the best
educational system in the world it’s got
the third lowest corruption in the world
according to Transparency International
it got very effective local governments
and stable business climates so as you
can see there is a lot we need to do
this there are there are many things
there is no one solution that will solve
the problem and it’s also it’s also not
one or the other we need to do all at
the same time and it really starts with
the education because the IT revolution
and the new technologies they have
changed the way we communicate the way
we learn the way we get the information
then the way we talk to each other but
our educational system has been not able
to adapt to this change very few schools
are teaching media literacy or critical
thinking we also need to start asking
ourselves like why people are losing
trust in democracy in Western values and
how we can rebuild this trust are we
teaching those values are we talking
about them with the young people
I was born in Slovakia during communism
I better run or nothing I was too little
I don’t know what it feels like to live
in a country where I can’t share my
ideas or where I can’t travel to a
different country I don’t know but I
should understand the difference between
democracy and dictatorship and also
thing each of us here can contribute
just the fact that I’m standing here
today at this stage means that we
already made a step forward so tomorrow
maybe you can talk to your friends to
your family about what you heard today
and maybe you can talk to your uncle who
believes in conspiracy theories but
please don’t approach him with anger or
I don’t fight with them because if you
do it if you do it with disdain or anger
you’re gonna shut the discussion at the
beginning you’re not gonna achieve
anything try to be more understandable
try to find a common ground with the
people of different opinions or
different beliefs and also I hope
tomorrow you will think twice before you
share a provocative article or some
article from a dubious websites because
I think these little steps can actually
help the problem they can prevent
conspiracies from spreading in one last
thing the goal of this information is to
not just this information it’s also the
goal of extremists it’s the call of
populist politicians one president
actually right now is to divide and
polarize societies is to make us less
tolerant is to is to make us believe
that some group or minority or a person
is worse than we are they try to turn us
against each other it don’t let that
happen
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
this is 2012 Slovakia a conspiracy
theory Johanna justice was born it
accused Germany friends and Nordic
countries of the most brutal tyranny in
the human history it described a
multinational system in which state
authorities are stealing children from
healthy and normal families it started
spreading quite quickly it was on
numerous websites and social media
accounts and at one point in even
reached a mainstream TV station people
starting signing petitions against it
four years later another conspiracy was
born in Germany these are case even
blogger a reporter at the first channel
Russian Kremlin owned accused a group of
asylum seekers of raping a young German
Russian girl Lisa the story was quickly
debunked but it was already too late it
caused media storm within few days
thousands of Russian speakers took to
the streets to protest against what they
perceived was a cover-up by by German
police and against America and her
immigration policy neither of the two
story that I gave you are based on truth
both were fake if both were able to
mobilize people and change their social
behavior and there are hundreds if not
thousands of such stories all around
Europe every day in every country but
this is not really a new phenomenon I
mean propaganda is the old method the
word propagate I’m used in the 17th
century it was used for propagating
Catholic Church in non-ketotic lands and
also war propaganda was used by cables
in the in the second world war by
Soviets during the Cold War but the
current phenomenon of this information
is different from these examples from
the past it doesn’t seek to propagate an
ideology or a party or an idea
it rather tries to destroy what has
already been built it tries to undermine
the trust of people toward democracy and
towards institutions towards Western
values towards the politicians towards
everything
it is very destructive it mobilized
people against something rather than for
something but also conspiracy so has
always been here I mean there’s always a
part of society that likes to believe
that everything is different then they
tell us in 2006 when they did opinion
poll in the United States they found
that 36% of Americans believed that the
United States government was behind the
9/11 terrorist attacks and this number
was actually quite high also in the
countries of Europe but having said that
still the 2014 when the war in Ukraine
started was a turning point because
suddenly this phenomenon became much
more target oriented much more
sophisticated and much more active so
suddenly you had all those stories of
fastest in Kiev and that the bodies of
dead children being trading in don’t
bother at all over Europe in 2015 the
same media started to exploit
immigration crisis vilifying immigrants
and exaggerating already existent
problem and I think this made it really
much more effective because because they
were able to use one of the most
powerful weapons people’s emotions and
fear and once the debate gets to the
emotional level people stop listening to
arguments I have been fascinated by this
phenomenon for years I work as an
analyst in a thing done in Prague where
I have created and now leads the
Institute initiative to to study and to
understand this phenomenon for my first
study I got a hundred of the examples of
conspiracies in this information to
understand the the main trends and and
the characteristics of it to understand
it with our team in Prague we are
organizing events discussions all kinds
of conferences to bring more people and
ideas to this topic
because only by fully understanding such
a such a complex and complicated
phenomenon you can then proposes
solutions the right solutions I also
work with a different team in Kiev a
team of IT developers with them we are
trying to develop more innovative
solutions to this problem so like apps
or platforms I try to bridge the world
of think tanks and long reports with the
world of IT innovation and new
technologies a year ago I moved to her
keys a city in eastern Ukraine
it’s also a place that is very close to
the war in Donbass and their information
kills people
10,000 people have died in a conflict in
which separatists and Russia are using
propaganda in this information to spark
anger among locals but what I realized
there and by studying other countries as
well is that this information and
propaganda can be a very powerful weapon
it can be a decisive weapon but what
makes it really effective is a number of
factors it’s a socio criminal situation
it’s the history of a place
Donbass has been neglected for decades
it lacked development investment into
infrastructure and into people in many
problems had B unresolved their
frustration has been high for a long
time also unemployment is high all these
things have created grievances that were
later exploited by Russia and by
separatists and you may now say that
Dumba’s is quite an extreme case and
that it’s true there’s war in Ukraine
but look at for example Slovakia my home
country where I was born
Slovakia is on the forefront of
disinformation attacks there are around
50 websites that are actively spreading
pro-russian and anti Western
disinformation Slovakia has got also
problem with the growing extremism the
codelab a party which is the neo-nazi
party go to the Parliament the 8% last
year but when they recently asked Slav
us what is the number one concern
it was corruption the current government
in Slovakia is going from
one corruption scandal to another again
many problem has been unresolved
there are many regions which are
underdeveloped education system has been
under finance it is much easier to
manipulate dissatisfied people than
happy people but now I’d like to be a
little bit more optimistic I think this
information propaganda and manipulation
online poses an immense threat to our
society but I also believed West is much
more innovative and it can advance much
faster than the other side which is
getting much more predictable for us
there are solutions we just have a lot
of homework to do first high awareness
is crucial according to research people
who understand the logic of the
manipulative techniques and of
propaganda are then more likely to
become resistant to it once they’re
exposed to it the high where Nisour in
the society is very important so they
understand so everybody understand this
is harmful for us so that politicians
and policymakers are talking about it
openly acknowledge the problem and
condemn the source this is important
it’s also important that the media and
the civil society it is investigating
this so who is behind it what are their
motives who’s organizing it and why and
if they’re they are breaking the law
then there should be illegal actions but
at the same time we are focusing on the
problem itself we should also think
about what it exploits on the ground and
I gave you examples from from Donbass
from Slovakia and I can come up with
many more understanding that the
disinformation is exploiting our own
weaknesses is crucial if you want to
come up with a strategy that is the
least complex and comprehensive because
if we don’t make our society’s
resilience we will remain vulnerable to
manipulation forever
today in my mostly come from Russia and
Isis but the same methods can be used
tomorrow by anybody
by terrorists by extremists by populace
by politicians anybody in the world of
Internet and social media it is very
easy to manipulate people to spread a
harmful idea through Internet and only a
strong educated and confident society
can withstand information attacks and
look at the countries where for example
this information is less effective
Finland itself is a case in point
Finland is under immense disinformation
attacks every day but it’s able to
withstand it much better than other
countries and there are a number of
reasons for this first there’s this high
awareness so so the society in Finland
they talk about this this phenomenon
quite a lot politicians government civil
society media but the high wordless is
only part of a bigger picture
Finland’s got one of the best
educational system in the world it’s got
the third lowest corruption in the world
according to Transparency International
it got very effective local governments
and stable business climates so as you
can see there is a lot we need to do
this there are there are many things
there is no one solution that will solve
the problem and it’s also it’s also not
one or the other we need to do all at
the same time and it really starts with
the education because the IT revolution
and the new technologies they have
changed the way we communicate the way
we learn the way we get the information
then the way we talk to each other but
our educational system has been not able
to adapt to this change very few schools
are teaching media literacy or critical
thinking we also need to start asking
ourselves like why people are losing
trust in democracy in Western values and
how we can rebuild this trust are we
teaching those values are we talking
about them with the young people
I was born in Slovakia during communism
I better run or nothing I was too little
I don’t know what it feels like to live
in a country where I can’t share my
ideas or where I can’t travel to a
different country I don’t know but I
should understand the difference between
democracy and dictatorship and also
thing each of us here can contribute
just the fact that I’m standing here
today at this stage means that we
already made a step forward so tomorrow
maybe you can talk to your friends to
your family about what you heard today
and maybe you can talk to your uncle who
believes in conspiracy theories but
please don’t approach him with anger or
I don’t fight with them because if you
do it if you do it with disdain or anger
you’re gonna shut the discussion at the
beginning you’re not gonna achieve
anything try to be more understandable
try to find a common ground with the
people of different opinions or
different beliefs and also I hope
tomorrow you will think twice before you
share a provocative article or some
article from a dubious websites because
I think these little steps can actually
help the problem they can prevent
conspiracies from spreading in one last
thing the goal of this information is to
not just this information it’s also the
goal of extremists it’s the call of
populist politicians one president
actually right now is to divide and
polarize societies is to make us less
tolerant is to is to make us believe
that some group or minority or a person
is worse than we are they try to turn us
against each other it don’t let that
happen
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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