Elections

Expert: Disinformation and propaganda significantly influenced the vote of voters

Both the presidential election and the constitutional referendum were well organized in terms of electoral administration. However, disinformation and propaganda significantly influenced the vote of the voters. This was announced by Elena Calistru, president of Funky Citizens Romania for Moldova 1 TV.

The expert spoke about the process of monitoring the elections in the Republic of Moldova and about disinformation. "It is clear that disinformation and propaganda had a major impact on how citizens were persuaded to vote. I clearly saw a concerted effort in this area, however, on the day of the elections, the voting seemed very well organized by the electoral administration. As for observing the counting of votes, Moldova is an example of good practice".

Elena Calistru advises voters to be vigilant and recommends reliable sources of information. "To question any type of information that causes them too much emotion, whether it's fear or extreme anger. This is the first moment when it must be clearly seen if it is not an attempt at manipulation. Second, look at reliable sources. I really appreciated that you also had the real-time fact-checking and information marathons. At least in electoral debates, they are very important".

Independent observer Iosif Prodan claims that disinformation is a global problem that has been heavily instrumentalized in elections in recent years. "I have repeatedly heard the narratives urging the boycott of the referendum, the vote against the referendum. Here the impact was major without fact-checking and truth. Obviously, in Romania, we do not influence on such a large scale of fake news and there is not the amount of money that we have seen in the Republic of Moldova. 130,000 voters or 300,000 means extremely much, out of the total number of voters - 20%. This is where non-profit, independent organizations, the media and media investigations believe they play a key role."

Experts from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the OSCE have expressed concern about illicit foreign interference and disinformation affecting the electoral process and warned that fake news continues to spread online and authorities should act systematically to counter fakes. According to them, the elections took place in the context of massive attempts at foreign interference and sustained attacks on democratic values and institutions.

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