The best way to deal with misinformation is to tell the truth, says Denmark’s first Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova Søren Jensen. In an interview with IPN News Agency, the diplomat stressed that the Moldovan government must provide the citizens with reliable information.
As for the intensification of disinformation originating from the Kremlin amidst the presidential election campaign in Moldova, the ambassador said that the best way is to tell the truth because misinformation is by definition not true. “So, if the government basically tells the people of Moldova the truth, I think they stand very strong. But of course, there are other things you can do. You can try to, to limit the sources of this misinformation. But at the end of the day, I think there are two only things you can really do. First of all, when you know about stories that are wrong, you can try to debunk them, as it's called. You can try to show that they're false,” said the Danish diplomat.
Media education is an important instrument in the fight against disinformation. From Denmark’s experience, critical thinking, promoted since school, can make a difference. The people must learn to ask questions and reject absurd misinformation. “If people are critical, if people ask questions, is this really true? Is it true when they are told that the European Union is going to turn everybody into LGBT people? Is this really true? And people can think, probably not, because everybody in Denmark and everybody in Sweden and everybody in France and Germany are not LGBT people. So probably this is not true either,” exemplified the ambassador.
According to Søren Jensen, the Government of the Republic of Moldova has taken a number of measures to combat disinformation, limiting access to the most harmful media sources and working with civil society and media outlets to make them more responsible. However, finding the balance between press freedom and preventing the spread of disinformation remains a challenge.
