Finland has been carrying out initiatives since 2014 to fight fake news. This false information is spreading faster and faster on the Internet and directly impacts the opinion of citizens. But Finland seems to be winning this war against fake news and is becoming a model for the rest of European countries.
A fight plan that has existed for 5 years
Jussi Toivanen, at the Espoo Adult Education Center, gives a PowerPoint presentation around the phenomenon of fake news. With illustrations and examples, he explains to adults, sometimes lost on the Internet, how to recognize false information or even avoid it. Twitter bots, photo and video editing, fake accounts, everything is described so that “students” are as informed as possible on the subject.
This course is part of a series of anti-fake news initiatives launched in 2014, so 8 years ago. The aim was to help citizens, journalists, students and even politicians to be careful not to believe everything that is said on the Internet and to avoid spreading inaccurate information. In short, all the inhabitants of Finland are affected by these measures, even more since Russia (bordering country) interfered in the American presidential campaign in 2016.
A series of initiatives bearing fruit
According to a study conducted at the European Policies Program Open Society Institute in Sofia (Bulgaria), Finland is the country where the media would best resist the problems of fake news. Finland would therefore be the country that best educates its population about this problem, but more generally that tries to awaken the critical sense of the inhabitants.
Toivanen explains that “it’s not just a government problem, it’s all of society that has been targeted. We are doing our part, but everyone must contribute to the protection of Finnish democracy.“He adds that”kindergarten teachers are the first line of defense”. Education is at the heart of the issue.
Measures are multiplying precisely within schools. The Franco-Finnish school in Helsinki, for example, organized debates around the European elections, where the hottest topics in the news (immigration, Brexit, economy, etc.) were discussed. The students then had to use their computers to verify the information given during the debates, always with the idea “to investigate” to disentangle the true from the false. They had to look at YouTube videos, social media posts and compare them to each other.
Final observation from one of the students who took part in this exercise: “It’s very annoying to have to check absolutely everything, becauseyou can’t trust anything or anyone on the internet. We should end this.”
Finland, a democracy that faces a polluted Internet
Finland is a country that presents very encouraging statistics concerning the well-being of its population: 2nd country in terms of freedom of presswith a world-recognized education model, and an effective policy to combat poverty (notably by being one of the few European countries to have improved the situation of its homeless)… This is why the country is giving itself the means to fight as much as possible against fake news: the stability of its democracy is crucial.
Despite all the good will of the Finns, the problem seems particularly complex. Jessikka Aro, journalist at Finnish radio-TV YLE, speaks on the subject: “Facebook, Twitter, Google/YouTube should regulate Russian trolls.” She refers to the problem of Russians who allegedly tried to interfere in the local media, well before the American elections of 2016. Fearing the growing influence of the Kremlin, many media are on their guard about the information circulating on the net and believe that the biggest platforms should take their responsibilities.
Jussi Toivanen, the teacher we mentioned above, sums up the situation very simply: “It will be a real challenge for us to counter this type of activity [circulation de fake news] in the near future. We have to prepare for it.”
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