Xhorxhina Bami and Ardita ZeqiriPristinaBIRNMay 5, 202317:52BIRN Kosovo director Jeta Xharra said the new Kosovo Coalition Against Disinformation, formed on Friday, will act as ‘a vaccine against the disinformation virus and untrue propaganda’ in the country.
The launch of the Kosovo Anti-Disinformation Coalition at the National Library of Kosovo in capital Pristina, May 5, 2023. Photo: BIRN
BIRN Kosovo and six other Kosovo-based NGOs and media organisations have formed the Kosovo Anti-Disinformation Coalition, it was announced on Friday.
“The coalition aims to advocate for and support awareness raising and capacity building in Kosovo society in order to face the challenges of disinformation and build a society in which accurate, full, and timely information is the foundation of information,” their joint statement read.
The organisations participating in the coalition alongside BIRN are the NGOs Democracy Plus, Democracy for Development and Roma in Action, Internews Kosova and the Serbian-language media in Kosovo, KoSSev and Gracanica Online.
BIRN Kosovo director Jeta Xharra said the coalition’s goal is to “function as a vaccine against the disinformation virus and the untrue propaganda that is shared very quickly in many information channels that exist today, including social media networks”.
Xharra added: “We decided to become strategic and create alliances with other civil society and media organisations which have worked in this field. We are started today with seven members but we aim to include new members in future.”
She explained that the members have worked together to create the coalition’s principles in the war against disinformation in order to “to make this alliance functional in all the territory of Kosovo including the many languages of Kosovo, not only the language of the majority”.
Alongside the two main ethnic communities of Albanians and Serbs, Kosovo’s constitution recognises Romani, Egyptian, Ashkali, and Turkish communities. Serbian and Albanian are official languages, but in certain towns Romani and Turkish are widely spoken.
“If those who distribute disinformation are organised, we, on the other hand, must become organised and strategic to stop disinformation, and this is not done alone but together around good information,” Xharra said.
Emrah Cermjani, from Roma in Action NGO, said the coalition will strengthen accurate information and the advocacy of these organisations to fight against fake news.
His own community has often been a victim of this disinformation phenomenon, he said.
“We as a society advocate every day to increase awareness and build the capacities of Kosovar society to face the challenges of disinformation and build a society in which accurate, complete and timely information is the basis of information.
“This coalition of organisations, in addition to jointly conveying this goal, will strengthen our advocacy even more, since almost every day we face fake news and many times as communities we have been victims of this phenomenon. I believe we will achieve results,” Cermjani stated.
The Kosovo Coalition on Disinformation intends to become a platform of civil society and media organizations “that defend freedom of expression, pluralism of thought and free flow of information”, fighting disinformation not only via reporting but also in the field of education and science.
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