Marius Dragomir at the CIVICA Public Lecture: The Disinformation War Will Intensify

CMDS Director Marius Dragomir cautioned against content regulation and stressed the importance of independent journalism in the fight against disinformation at the CIVICA public lecture on fake news and democracy.

In the online event, held on 17 March, Marius Dragomir discussed disinformation with Nick Anstead (LSE), Alina Bârgăoanu (SNSPA) and journalist and professor Gianni Riotta.

Talking about the war in Ukraine, Dragomir said he was often asked who he thought would win the information war. He said he could not answer as it was unclear what victory meant in this context. He said in the current polarized media systems the disinformation war will probably intensify.

Regarding social media platforms, while they clearly are the main conduits for misinformation, he pointed out that a lot of new initiatives, some of which are great, have been put in place in the past few years. Some social media companies have started working closely with local players to identify and remove misinformation; they also started the labelling of state-affiliated media, which is a very important step.

He said he understood the calls for regulating the platforms, but he cautioned against content-level regulation, saying governments should not be involved in regulating media content. He pointed out that in a number of countries, the government is a main source of disinformation. The regulation of social media platforms should remain on the structural level to rein in their domination in the communication system, he said.

Overall, he called for more support for independent journalism as one way to fight misinformation. Another important task is to build an unbiased, trustworthy source of information resilient to disinformation. This has traditionally been the public service media, but, as his own research The State of State Media has shown, that system has failed in many countries.