Abstract:

The circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic show how misinformation can negatively affect public opinion. Especially in situations threatening the lives and health of the population, people tend to believed unverified sources of information more easily. First, to reduce the spread of misinformation, the knowledge of factual arguments is needed that can convincingly refute the allegation and verify the falsity of the misinformation. Classic print media have been pushed into the online environment by modern technology, as their readers have moved there. The content creators in the online environment, which is accessible to the masses, are not only authorized entities guaranteeing a certain quality of content, but also anonymous contributors with various intentions. The significant increase in the share of misinformation in publicly available information sources is called “infodemic”. The contradiction of information published online seriously threatens the state of democracy around the world, regardless of national borders, and across the entire population. In 2018, the European Commission responded to the increase in misinformation by adopting the Code of Practice on Disinformation. In May 2021, it issued a guideline to the Code to further strengthen the effect of the Code of Practice on Disinformation. These are the first documents of their kind in the world. By empowering Internet users, they are expected to play a more active role in preventing the spread of misinformation and to better cooperate with fact verifiers in all EU Member States and languages. The aim of the paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the online environment, to clarify the rights of EU citizens in relation to the spread of disinformation and to present the most important documents valid in this regard. Using specific examples from police practice, we point out selected techniques of manipulative influence in the online environment. A separate section in the paper is dedicated to children and youth, for whom the mass media are increasingly becoming a strong means of socialization and education.

Keywords:

Internet users, public opinion, information, manipulate, misinformation, verify the falsity, infodemic, Code of Practice on Disinformation, manipulative influen.