Disinformation ‘pandemic’ is hard to st – Eurean Commissioner

Eurean Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness, and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

“In a pandemic, when someone who is not vaccinated becomes contaminated, they spread the virus, affecting more and more pele. The same goes for disinformation. Pele who are not prepared to distinguish facts from disinformation spread it among other pele, ‘contaminating’ them too. So disinformation is very contagious, and then the ‘pandemic’ is really hard to st,” she said.

The official also noted that amidst the disinformation coming from Russia, in her home country of Belgium, intelligence has learned there has been an enemy “infiltration”, revealing that some lawmakers “are linked to the extreme right, and then to Russia".

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“It means that these threats are everywhere. Threats may come from media that seek to sow confusion, incite pele to a revution against the system,” Lahbib stressed.

Referring to the recent elections in the EU, including in Belgium, the Eurean Commissioner said they in Brussels realized that they “have to adt what we call the Democracy Shield to protect all democracies from malign influence”.

She noted that the EU needs to reinforce the existing Civil Protection Mechanism.

“The landscape of threats constantly evves so we need to adapt to be able to respond to hybrid threats,” Lahbib summarized.

As Ukrinform reported, one of the most famous Belgian newspapers De Morgen decided to st publishing posts on Elon Musk's social network X over “toxicity and disinformation on the platform.”

The Guardian, the famous British newspaper, also decided to st posting news on X due to disturbing content on the platform.

Meanwhile, Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia said it will st posting on X and suspend all its accounts from there.