Why the fake information is dangerous for the society?

The fake news in media has always been a problem, but during the coronavirus pandemic, it has become more prevalent. An unreliable, unverified or shown only from one angle information can not only disorient, but also harm society, provoking the panic among the population.

In late March, the State Duma approved a law on the criminal liability for the dissemination of false information about the coronavirus. And the law has already begun to operate - since the beginning of April, more than a dozen criminal cases have been initiated. However, it is important to remember that the fake information is dangerous not only in the cases, related to a pandemic. Unfortunately, the media neglect the journalistic ethics quite often and cover the problems one-sidedly, only for the sake of getting a wide public response.

The chairman of the Russian Union of Law Enforcement Agencies and a member of the Union of Journalists Aleksey Lobarev agreed with this statement. He noted that many editorial offices work only for hype. At the same time, to create a full-fledged information picture, it is necessary to listen to both conflicting parties.

“Listen only to one side - and you will get all the hype,” said Alexey Lobarev.

Indeed, such things happen very often nowadays. The most popular fakes today (those that were noted by the Prosecutor's Office and Roskomnadzor) are related to the information that the coronavirus does not exist, and that it only covers the global economic crisis, that the vaccinations will increase mortality, and that the self-isolation regime will last for at least a year.

Before the government took the measures to toughen the punishment for the fake information, the responsible authorities had been registering up to 50 new topics with false information every day. Now this number has decreased - to 15-20 fakes and, as a rule, the topics became insignificant. But it is worth noting that the media do not disseminate such news, in the most cases, they are reposted by the users on the social networks. 

Alexey Lobarev told about the importance of covering information from both sides and not “getting stuck” in only one position using the example of a story from his own life.

“Once, a woman ran up to me and said that there was a man over there who set the fire to the cars at night and that he had to be arrested. I asked if she was sure. She replied that she was absolutely sure about him, and that she had the witnesses – it was necessary to handcuff the criminal and take him to the police. We came up to the “criminal” and it turned out that he had arrived in the city an hour before with his wife and was looking for a friend’s house. He had all the documents and the tickets, but had no idea who had set the fire to the cars at night. Therefore, it is always necessary to find out the positions of both conflicting parties.”

In the era of fakes, Russians are recommended, first of all, not to believe the information that came from the unconfirmed sources. Even when we are talking about the media, but in the text the editorial office refers to “a friend of my mother’s girlfriend” - this is an occasion to think about whether the data is real. However, nowadays some people do not disdain even to falsify the official documents. For example, a few weeks ago, a fake order on the introduction of the curfew appeared on the network, and many media circulated it without checking.

“The media has more authority than the citizens, firstly, because of the number of the audience. Secondly, the law gives the media more answers to the questions. Today, the journalists have enormous rights that allow them to demand all the necessary materials, and editors will provide them,” said Alexey Lobarev.

Our interlocutor has also emphasized that the singers should not deceive the audience and should warn about lip-synching when singing, and the unscrupulous journalists should make postscript at the end of the article, saying that: “I listened only to one side of the conflict and did not ask another one".

It should be noted that today, the population succumbed to enormous pressure from the media, and a misinterpretation of the problems forms the wrong public opinion, which leads to nothing but the additional tension and panic. We urge our colleagues to be more attentive to the information received and not to forget about the main rule: I listened to one side of the conflict, and then found out, what the second one thinks about it.