About 40% of Moldova’s population receives information from social networks, which, however, remain fertile ground for the spread of fake news. How are Facebook and Telegram structured and what is their share of responsibility in manipulating information? We discussed these topics with the participants of the second module of the media course held within the “informMD – against misinformation in the Republic of Moldova” project.

At the first session of the module, which took place on September 16, 2011, IPIS media expert Maria Levcenco, talked about how the increased use of Internet and social networks has significantly changed the global information picture. The expert also spoke about economy of click, tools to fight against fakes and the dilemma of new media regulation, taking as an example the case of Trump versus Twitter.

A comprehensive description of the disinformation industry in the Republic of Moldova was made by the media manager Dumitru Tira, during the second session of the module, which took place on September 23, 2021. The expert also told how to recognize a fake site, how troll factories are organized, who these people are, and how much does it costs to maintain such factories; but also what new manipulation techniques were used during this summer’s election campaign.

The media course consists of four modules, and the next meeting will take place in October 2021.

A description of the first module is available here: Media course for young people was launched as part of the project “#informMD – against misinformation in the Republic of Moldova” – Institutul pentru Inițiative Strategice (ipis.md)

The project “informMD – Against Disinformation in the Republic of Moldova” is implemented by The Institut für Europäische Politik based in Berlin (IEP) in partnership with the Institute for Strategic Initiatives of Moldova (IPIS) and the Institute for European Policies and Reforms of Moldova (IPRE) with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office.