Disinformation and fake news are weapons, and the goal of those creating them is to turn these weapons against society. At the root of this are personal interests and collective goals,” said Chairman of AZERTAC Board Vugar Aliyev as he addressed the OANA conference on “Cooperation among News Agencies on Fighting Disinformation”.
Speaking at the panel session “Areas of cooperation for the news agencies in the fight against disinformation”, Vugar Aliyev noted that the growing focus on disinformation and fake news in the modern times is associated with the boom of social media and messengers. The Board Chairman mentioned the tandem of mobile technologies and social media in this respect.
“Of course, this tandem has facilitated people's access to news and made media activity more flexible. At the same time, along with accurate news, people also receive fake news on their mobile phones, which misleads them and, in mass cases, leads to more serious consequences,” he added.
According to him, Azerbaijan is one the countries that suffered the most from disinformation with the Azerbaijani society largely affected by fake news during the Karabakh war.
Vugar Aliyev suggested opening a section on the website of OANA where agencies could post false information they expose.
“This will be our contribution to society. Of course, such mechanisms should only serve media literacy and should not be a manipulation tool. We could place a link to such a section on our website, thereby contributing to our organization's fight against disinformation in more than 30 countries around the world. We can also help contribute to increasing media literacy. Creating a section on the OANA website with information on concepts such as disinformation, fake news and manipulative information would also contribute to our common cause,” he noted.
“We are all interested in cooperation and exchange of experience. Therefore, it is necessary to allocate space for experience exchange programs within the framework of OANA,” Vugar Aliyev pointed out.
He cited AZERTAC’s news and personnel exchange with Anadolu and TASS agencies as an example of cooperation.
