Bulgaria to soon establish institution for tackling fake news

Sofia, Bulgaria: The Balkan state will soon constitute a “special institution” which will look over and analyze the fake news on the social media platforms and also will scrutinize the online media that pretends to be news agencies. The announcement was made by the Electronic Governance Minister Bozhidar Bojanov during his recent address in the parliament.  

The Minister, in his statement, asserted, “Targeted misinformation against unsuspecting consumers is a systemic risk to our community, & adequate countermeasures are required. These measures must be well-targeted because of the risks they pose to freedom of expression.”  

Following the above remarks, Bojanov underscored, “We are guided by one basic principle – neither the government nor any large firm should decide what is true and what is not, and block content. We should not create mechanisms for such behaviour because it can very easily be utilized in the wrong direction.”  

Balkan state’s “Bulgarian Coalition against Disinformation” initiative to tackle the misinformation issue has been supported by the European Commission also, which was presented on April 1, 2022. 

Meanwhile, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the electronic ministry of Bulgaria contacted Meta to tackle the disinformation. 

The Minister further, in his statement, cited that the Bulgarian administration is well aware of the fact that Russia directly or indirectly pays for spreading misinformation and also disseminates trolls and the other content in a coordinated manner on the social media.  

In today’s era spreading and making up a piece of fake news is very easy. Misinformation misleads the population in a direction in which the spreader wants it to. There have been many disinformations regarding the ongoing situation between Russia-Ukraine on the social media platforms. Moreover, according to the reports, among the member states of the European Union, the Bulgarian population is more vulnerable to fake news or misinformation.