The current mass protests and student blockades have prompted pro-government media, especially tabloids, to “splash” the public in Serbia with a large amount of political disinformation, which includes intensified anti-Western narratives, say EWB interlocutors. The main motive for spreading pieces of fake news on daily basis is an attempt to discredit critics of the government, particularly the individuals who are politically engaged, by labelling them as “foreign mercenaries”, while some of the EU officials are falsely accused of supporting the so-called “colour revolution” in Serbia.
Analysts believe that such disinformation campaigns encourage not only verbal but also physical attacks on participants of protests and blockades.
Ivan Subotić: Tabloids have published over 3,000 pieces of manipulative news in the last three months
Ivan Subotić, Editor-in-Chief of FakeNews Tracker (FakeNews tragač) confirms for European Western Balkans that, since the beginning of the current protests and student blockades, there have been even more pieces of political disinformation than previously.
“Student blockades and protests have been in the focus of the media since the beginning, and a large part of the media outlets favourable to the state authorities have created a completely distorted image of these events in the public. If you read such media, you will get the impression that the students are exponents of foreign forces who launched protests because Serbia is doing too well, which bothers our ‘opponents’ and in order to seize power from the current government. In addition, they are portrayed as violent, destroying our economy and institutions”, Ivan Subotić explains.
Subotić notes that, in addition to students, the university professors, deans and rectors are targeted by the pro-government media outlets.
“The consequences of establishing such narratives in a large part of the media outlets are reflected in increasingly frequent attacks on students, professors, deans and rectors, as well as all people engaged in any kind of activism. The FakeNews Tracker reports all of this regularly within its “Blocking Notebook” (“Blokadna beležnica”). Tabloids Alo, Informer and Novosti, which have proven to be leaders when it comes to misinterpretation of student blockades and protests, have published over 3,000 articles that FN Tracker assessed as manipulative“, he stresses.
Vesna Radojevic: Tabloids in Serbia are being used as a tool of revenge on all the individuals who criticise the government
Vesna Radojević, a journalist of the investigative portal KRIK and the editor of the project “RasKRIKavanje”, agrees with the assessments that the number of political disinformation in the Serbian media has “definitely increased” recently.
“RasKRIKavanje portal debunks the increasing number of false news on a daily basis. Of course, the main aim of such manipulations is to discredit opponents, to create confusion, but also to prevent people from engaging politically, because they will inevitably experience the horrors of tabloid campaigns,” Vesna Radojević tells EWB.
Radojević states that the tabloids in Serbia are being used as a tool for revenge, since their “only task is to be eternally obedient to the Serbian Progressive Party, by slandering all individuals who say anything negative about Aleksandar Vučić”.
Political disinformation is generated around important events or persons
In a similar tone, Ivan Subotić states that the motives for spreading disinformation can be different, but that in Serbia, the pieces of false news are most often published to spread political influence and propaganda or for economic reasons.
“In political terms, pieces of disinformation and manipulation are most often generated around important events (such as, for instance, mass protests) or important persons (political and activist leaders of various kinds). In this sense, it is most often manipulated to discredit a specific person or to distort the image of a particular event,” Subotić specifies.
Speaking about disinformation placed for economic benefit, he clarifies that manipulative advertisements for various products and services are the most common phenomenon.
“On domestic web portals, various medications that allegedly cure the most common diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases or joint problems, are most often manipulatively advertised. On the other hand, on social networks we encounter various types of scams that are placed with disinformation, such as those in which potential victims are led to invest money in cryptocurrencies or shares of a well-known company”, Subotić remarks.
The government encourages the spread of disinformation about the EU in the media outlets
Commenting on the rise of disinformation about the West, primarily about the EU, in the Serbian media outlets, the interlocutors of EWB state that such lies are favoured by the current government.
According to Vesna Radojević: “Anti-Western narratives and disinformation reveal the radical soul of Serbian authorities – to them the European values are something distant, since they enjoy domination and autocracy”.
“Serbian authorities have no desire to establish the rule of law in this country, and we cannot expect them to do so. If they were to maintain democratic values, they would soon be out of power. So, the increase or even the presence of lies and disinformation about the West is not surprising at all, moreover, it is a real characteristic of people who have held all the levers of power for 13 years”, Radojević claims.
Ivan Subotić notes that the current “harmful narratives” about the West in media outlets and on social networks are mostly related to protests in Serbia.
“Students in the blockades are being reproached for riding bicycles to Strasbourg or running a relay marathon to Brussels, and in addition, some European officials are being targeted, such as the European Parliament’s Rapporteur for Serbia, Tonino Picula, or the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos. European officials are often falsely accused of being attached to the ideology of Nazism, on the basis of kinship ties or merely on the basis of countries of birth. European values are presented in some media outlets as obscene, anti-Christian, contrary to Serbian tradition and family values”, Subotić remarks.
He assesses that “all these factors, along with the lack of interest of the Serbian authorities in the European path of our country, have led to a drastic decline in the interest of Serbian citizens in joining the EU in the last ten to fifteen years”.
“Today, less than half of Serbian citizens would vote in a referendum to join the EU, while fifteen years ago, as many as 70 per cent of Serbian citizens were in favour of joining the Union,“ Subotić notes.