n light of current events, these data are even more worrisome if it is known that they are happening during the party races of Republicans and Democrats for candidates for the US president, but also in the run-up to the US presidential elections, which according to announcements should be held next year.

How problematic these decisions of technology companies really are, and what is the role of disinformation from Macedonia in the political race in the United States? The previous experiences during the presidential elections in America in 2016 can testify.

The acceleration of the race for the US president and the decisions of Twitter and YouTube not to respond to bots with misinformation are reviving in the domestic public a topic that has been active for several years and is connected with the already known so-called Veles sites. 

Namely, for those sites, which first appeared during the pre-election campaign in America, there was a well-founded suspicion that they copy content from other American sites, spread fake news, and their goal is financial gain. 

Their actions were exposed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which informed that some of the sites that operated incriminated originated from the Macedonian city of Veles.

According to the OCCRP, the Veleska websites usapoliticsinsider.com and usadailypolitics.com use the social network Parler, which is considered a right-wing platform and has hundreds of thousands of users in the US, for their illegal activities to generate significant traffic to their websites.

Apart from the presidential elections in America, the theme of disinformation and fake news was also active in the presidential race this year and in Turkey.

Namely, according to numerous news from the worlds media houses, both camps of the presidential elections in the second round of this race, from which the previous head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged as the winner, accuse the media of spreading false news about the candidates. 

Thus, the camp of the leading opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu informed that the disinformation about Erdogans support comes from an internet address from Russia.

Erdogan’s camp pointed out that the fake news in the elections saying that the president was suffering from a severe illness was aimed at creating a false image that he could not rule the country.

In a sublimated conclusion, consulted local and foreign experts say that disinformation and fake news are the great enemies of democracy in the world. 

They add that if misinformation can threaten the elections in the USA and Turkey, what can be said about their danger to the Balkan countries?

In a statement for Sloboden Pecat, Czech professor Michal Witt explains that there is currently no comprehensive, unique, and precise definition of fake news.

"But basically, it is about lies, manipulations, distortion of facts, dosed presentation of facts, spin, sensationalistic presentation of available information, deliberate twisting of things, propaganda." 

“That is why, if their actions are not prevented, they will be a tool that will be used instead of elections to elect future presidents and prime ministers of the countries of the region and the world," says Witt.

According to Witt, education is currently the only protective armor in the fight against fake news.

- This battle is fought only with critical thinking and verification. The state must develop educational modules promoting a crucial examination of reality. I remember a media literacy project with high school students. I made up the news and tasked them with finding errors and illogicalities. There were about 40 errors in the short fictional news, and students located only about 10, the most obvious ones. This means that the country has to create a critical public, and in this way, the fight against fake news will be successful - Witt points out.

Veles continues to create fake news, but its impact is much smaller

Compared to the presidential elections in the USA in 2016, the influence of the so-called author of fake news from Veles about the decision of American citizens regarding which presidential candidate to vote for now is reduced. 

That is the analysis of the "Voice of America" in the Macedonian language. 

According to the media, in 2016, a group of young people from this Macedonian city managed to influence the electorate by renting a domain in the USA, setting up websites, and using the social network FB. 

This problem still exists but is less visible and influential than in the past. 

As the Voice of America reports, their influence, in the past period in the 2016 elections, according to some estimates, was between 60 and 80 million users. 

This then encouraged FB to create a completely sophisticated protection of its product, according to which, after the 2016 elections, dozens of FB pages of the citizens of Veles were blocked so that fake news could not spread through this social network.

Video games against misinformation

All innovations in the technological world do not have a negative connotation regarding the use of technology and the spread of misinformation. 

Interesting news says that the computer game Counter-Strike will be used to prevent disinformation coming to the world from Russia. 

As the media reports, the game, a global brand, will have an algorithm to prevent fake news and deliver actual content to those who use it. 

That is, to those users who play the game in Russia, and they number in the millions. 

Insiders at the video game company say this unusual approach to combating disinformation will be a market innovation that will slip through Moscows state censorship of the truth about the war in Ukraine.

Source: www.slobodenpecat.mk/dali-industrijata-na-lagi-predvreme-gi-minira-izborite-vo-sad/