 Hello everybody to our first edition of this lecture series making sense of the digital society already in our fifth year actually It's hard to believe we started out in December 2017 and we're in our fifth year now we're going to do approximately four editions of the series this year and This is the first so on behalf of the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and The federal Agency for Civic Education a very warm warm welcome to you at home where you're watching or Wherever you're watching Alex TV or the streams on the respective websites of the partnering agencies here and of course The people here on site in Berlin who are actually present So tonight's edition of the series is not the first time actually we speak about changing media ecosystems We are in our fifth year as I said already and let me just real quickly Referred to you to Christoph Neubacher's talk a good four years ago. Actually We talked about democracy and the public sphere Rasmus Klein Nielsen about the power of platforms and how publishers adapt and also when Joseph and dyke talked about Europe and responsible platform societies Referred to the impact the geopolitical tech Competition have on our civic societies and their media infrastructure all of these talks and many more actually you will find online on a very advanced I think compendium on the Website of the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society check it out There's all those talks online in video and in audio and there's additional podcasts actually around the subjects Those talks were centered on But surprisingly to some not to others you might say we hardly ever talked about the Specificities of media ecosystem in Central Eastern Europe of which Eastern Germany and which grounds We actually stand on now here in Berlin. Of course is also or was also part of So when tonight's edition was devised the war in Ukraine was several months away, of course We are fully aware that with the ongoing rush in aggression our subject takes turns that the speakers and We the curators could not have foreseen on this massive scale And we will discuss what the current situation means for fake news Manipulation and so on in the digital sphere in Central Eastern Europe But despite the heavy concentration of new subject matters We firstly and mainly want to draw attention to the recent history of media systems in Eastern Europe And it's many changes it has brought about in the last 15 well to actually 30 years We're facing now already as always history in order to get a better view of the current Situation and of the possible developments especially for independent media and the digital sphere In the near future, of course We're going to have ample space and the conversation to talk about many subjects concerning the war What kind of change this might bring about in other Eastern countries as well If you want to follow further the path of the digital public in the war There are several events at the Humboldt Institute actually and the federal agency You will be able to find right away again and their respective websites Let me just point to you real quickly to a format called the digital salon that's taking place at the end of March I believe On a solidarity internet solidarity with Ukraine that's about the subject there And then BPB the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung That's the German name for the federal agency of civic education You will find updates on media coverage of the war in all of Europe That's I think an important widening of the scope of info especially for people and viewers living in Germany With such a heavy dose of the German-centered perspective we get here So let us have a good look at how we got where we are now in CEE and in the conversation after our two Introductory talks. Yes, you heard right. This is also a premiere in that we feature two main guests Marius Dragomir and Christina Rosgoni So the structure unfolds You know regulars probably know already what's going to happen now pretty much the same way except that you have two speakers now after this short intro it's going to be the first talk by Marius then it's going to be a short introduction to our second guest Christina Rosgoni It's going to be her introductory talk then we join for Conversation among the three of us for about 15 to 20 minutes But you will also have the possibilities to ask questions through slide all our digital tools And there's going to be microphone here on site at this venue at the session at holtsmarked in Berlin as well to join the conversation And I'm sure we'll hear many questions tonight after this subject. So to our first speaker He was a journalist himself in his home country of Romania So we just have firsthand experience of change in the media field and of the transformation after the Warsaw Pact to solve Of course, this was followed by maybe an even greater transformation for media for all of us digitization In 1999 he started working for an English language media to really change size so to speak After that and pursued an academic career in media studies He worked for the open society foundation and managed to research and policy portfolio on independent Journalism in London where he also co-edited a large study called mapping and digital media As of today, he is the director of the center of media data and society at CEU Central Union Central European University in Vienna his introductory talk is about I quote The risks independent journalism in central Eastern Europe is likely to face in the near future Please welcome from Vienna to Berlin Marius Dragomir Thank you, Toby Thank you all for joining us In this event. It's it's great to be here first of all. I have to say that it's always a Pleasure to be back in Berlin. It's it's great to be with you On on the site as well with a public after a while. So thank you very much for the for the invitation Indeed what I'm going to talk today again. Some of you will tell me is the The state of independent journalism in Central Eastern Europe and yes, indeed, I was lucky to have the lucky and old enough to have the experience of Working as a journalist in the region in several countries Romania was one the Czech Republic was another But also Indeed as you have heard for the past maybe 10 15 years I also spent my time researching the media so looking at what's happening in a field in which I was once a part of It's When we designed this this lecture, it was about the future of journalism what is happening to journalism today and It I was thinking that the best way to do that would be to by really looking into the past into the The past today case three decades and try to understand what has happened during this time with the media and journalism and in fact, I did that exercise thanks to a Chapter in a book that I that I wrote last year and the book up here this year In which I was asked to look at the past 30 years of journalism in Romania and try to answer the question Did independent did journalism help in the democratization process in Romania? Although to be very honest initially, I thought it's going to be Quite a tedious type of war because you go back to the same things you go back to your own country where you worked In in quite difficult conditions. In fact, it was a fascinating and intellectually fascinating Experience because I got back to many years ago And I looked back those years with with the with the mind of today and with the experience that we have today And it was great. And that's what I'm going to share with you I know you will tell me, you know, this guy is going to back in 15 minutes 30 years of Experience, but I will try to do that and Also, I have to tell you that I'm really I love talking about this the dystopia about at the same time when I when I Did this exercise looking at all these years. I realized Thinking about the events where I was in that it seemed to me that always I spoke about the same things and That is a that is quite bad because what was happening Realized now that things had haven't actually improved when it comes to regulation to independent journalism Over all this time in spite of the hopes that we had many years ago Last week when I was talking to a journalist based in Budapest about this event He asked me what are you going to do in Berlin? And I said I'm going to talk about the future of journalism And he said what future? And this is this is the question that that you know We we keep asking ourselves and I did myself too and I did it for for today's event. So Looking back at what happened with with the media I was trying of course there are many many trends that happened over this period of time and at the same time The the experiences in various countries are very different because yes, this region has common common characteristics common history sometimes common Ways of development, but at the same time there are many differences in how countries have evolved But still if you look back what I found very important among all these trends and factors that influenced independent journalism In my view, I think are five key trends First of all is that the government control And here I'm sure that many of you have Have seen the the growing influence of the government in the in the media And how that manifested first of all it was back in the 90s when sent when in most of the countries in Central Eastern Europe The governments were trying to create regulatory authorities. The whole process was very politicized From the very beginning these bodies were stuffed with people close with the political parties in power And everything was was working according to the political logic Another example of politicization was the reform of the former state media as as as you know the all the countries in Central Eastern Europe inherited These large broadcasters that were That were operated by the state and there was a process in the 90s that was trying to reform this state media into public media Outlets a process that in my view in most of the the countries except for for Few of them like the Czech Republic like the Slovak television in some some moments in time Most of this process was was a failed experiment in my view Talking about the concentration of ownership that is a very important trend and I I guess those of you who Who are old enough to remember the early days after the the fall of communism you you might Remember the explosion of media outlets lots of newspapers. I remember in Romania in 1990 You couldn't actually count anymore the number of newspapers television stations started to to operate But then if you look after 1994 What is happening in most of these nations? There is an increase in the Concentration of media ownership what that means essentially is that powerful Companies are taking over media outlets and you see in fact just just a few companies Controlling large parts of the of the markets during these those years. What was the effect of this trend? Well, obviously was a negative a very negative defect in in fact in many countries on diversity and pluralism in the media And why is that important? Why is that important when we speak about independent journalism? It is simply because It helped reduce the space for independent media To to to a level where it was in some countries almost impossible in fact to operate as an independent journalism the third important Factor in my view was this word that we scholars used a lot very hard sometimes to pronounce the Instrumentalization of the media what that means in fact is a combination of the the first two trends It's when you have media outlets that are either controlled by the government or owned by media companies that are controlled by oligarchs close to the government And in that situation what you have is a situation where the media outlets are not are not Operated for their news purpose, but they are operated to pursue the interests of the owners either political interests sometimes even personal interests and again the fact is another blow to the independent Media and and journalism Of course in in many countries the the economic situation was very important for how Journalism developed for how media markets developed and of course in I remember in the the early years of 2000 I was working back then in the Czech Republic as a journalist and There was a massive growth in the media market Thanks also to the foreign investors, but also thanks to the development the overall Economic development of the country on the other hand if you look back then you still have countries like Bulgaria or Romania That because of the slow economy they also suffered in terms of the the development the financial development of the media and Finally, there is a very important element and that is related to the technology And I think I think I'm right when I say that there was a delayed Embracement of the new technologies across the region and of course you cannot generalize you cannot talk and point at this at this trend in all of the countries But in many of them the Journalists or media outlets didn't react very fast to the very rapid development of the technology in the in the region I remember now I think it was in the mid 2000s and when I was a journalist in the Czech Republic and we were I was sitting with an Executive at an advertising agency in Prague. He was actually quite advanced He was reading about technologies and we were in a group with other journalists And he was talking about how this new channel YouTube was going to revolutionize the media markets And although all the people in the room including myself Were journalists covering marketing and media we didn't even know how to spell the name at the time I remember when the interview was finished We came back to the office and we said this guy is talking about this thing It sounds like you too like we when we searched the internet it all that came up was the band the music band And it was really we were very skeptical my editor in chief said in fact You know, maybe we don't run that story because if we don't understand if we don't even know how to spell the name of the company Let's drop it and there was this skepticism among even the people covering that about technologies about especially about people Who are coming to us and telling us in three five years everything will be internet everything will be dominated by the internet And they were right in fact, but that had a very Again another a very negative impact on on the media development in in the region. I believe So if you if you think about all that and compared to what we have today Which is what I describe by this concept concept of media capture It is in fact a combination of all these trends what has happened, especially in the past ten years was On the one hand these trends have intensified The space for independent media has shrunk even more And the public discourse Became heavily dominated by the government narrative and this is the result of media capture There are already a lot of definitions of media capture In fact this concept was very young some years ago But in the past few years many scholars have written books about the concept and try to define what it actually means And what media capture is is in fact a situation where the governments the political parties in power Team up and this is exactly the term team up with powerful businesses Usually owned by oligarchs to control vast parts of the media with the purpose of Winning elections and having access to public resources So this is what what media capture is and it's very important to really think about when did that happen? When did we start having this new trend of capturing of media outlets? Of course, it's very difficult in a paper that I wrote two years ago I was asked to to establish the date of birth of media capture and it's this very difficult or the key events that Triggered the media capture, but I think if we look back there are two two major Events that actually triggered the capture on the one hand is the exit of the foreign investors from Central and Eastern Europe We mapped the the foreign companies that own the media for for many years And already since 2006 until now most of the 17 most prominent Investment companies present in the media in the whole region left these countries some of them selling all their assets and the second very important turning point was the crisis from 2007 and 2008 that increased on the one hand the economic vulnerability of the media companies they Started to lose money. They started to to face extreme financial predicaments and as a result many of them got bought by local oligarchs So if you look at that and this is what we try to do when we study the phenomenon of media capture What what does it mean in fact? How do you recognize that and this was? Very large part of our work in the past two three years with our younger researchers and students We were looking at various examples in the region and trying to understand. What are the elements? How do you recognize capture? Looking at more Almost all the the nations in the region what we came up is is a model that consists of these four major trends One is the regulatory capture. This is when the governments Appoint their own people at the in the management of of the regulatory bodies These bodies are usually those that give licenses to broadcasters that that regulate the media market The second is the the control of public media And again, I mentioned already the the history and the attempt of reforming for the former state media that in my view in Most of the countries has failed and this is This is under the control of the governments in these two points It's very easy in fact for the governments to control them because there is this tradition when you win the elections The first thing that you do you appoint your own people in these bodies The third is the use of state funding as a control tool and this is This is a trend that we have seen almost in all the countries That's the situation when the government is using public resources to reward friendly outlets in the form of for example of state advertising or Keep the money away from the the media outlets that are that are critical of Your authorities and that has a very very negative impact on media companies And finally the ownership takeover and that's a that's a more difficult process That has happened over More than a decade Hungary is an example where most of the media outlets have been taken over by oligarchs close to the government at some point in 2018 it was estimated that more than two-thirds of the Hungarian media market was controlled by these by these structures if not if not more So if you if you really look at What what if you look at what happens when you have a situation of media capture? The just imagine imagine that you control the regulatory bodies So those that make decisions about who enters the market in the broadcasting field You control the public media which in many countries are large Infrastructure bodies you control the funding and usually in many countries These are large amounts of funding that are going to media outlets and you control the private media So what is left is barely nothing if you manage to do that You have an extraordinary control over the narrative in in in your own country It's very interesting We have written a lot about this model that sometimes we received calls from Regulatory authorities in some African countries asking us to to actually design a model They they were very confused They thought that because we write write so much about these issues We in fact work for the government's designing this model, but we were on the other side It was it was interesting because it took us a while to understand actually what they really wanted So now we have that what is the impact on on independent journalism? There are many ways to look at to look at these issues But I think I and I chose to share with you Four of the types of impact that I think I think are important First of all is the economic impact if you have that situation where you control everything and you spend a lot of public money in the Media you essentially destroy the potential for financial sustainability of the media Just imagine and this is something that came up in many discussions We had with with investors when you go to such a country where Everything is actually controlled and a lot of public money is is pumped into the media and a lot of the media is subsidized It's incredibly if not impossible to actually set up a media outlet We talk about the cultural impact and this is a lot This is probably the topic for an entire lecture and this is actually what is happening when you have that type of control You manage to actually shape the consumption patterns and narratives to a point where the propaganda has devastating Effects on the on how people read how people consume the media the media and how they actually act upon upon what they They consume in the media That is the impact on the profession of course and this is again a topic that has been discussed And it has been analyzed and this is when you have an extreme polarization of the journalism field If you look at most of the countries in the region you actually see two worlds of journalism on the one hand the The massive state-controlled media outlets that employ thousands of people and then you have very small independent media that Are hardly trying to to survive and of course you have the technological advantage And this is something that we are probably going to speak more There are many laws that are adopted in many countries in the region That that in my view are going to affect the how people access information how people consume information So if you if you think about all these things and Trying to go back to my question Initially that that I said for this talk I was wondering what is going to happen if these trends are going to continue and this is something I think the simplest conclusion that I reached And I reached it looking again at various various places in our region. I really see that The impact of of the media capture and this trends on independent journalism is that it reduces journalism to independent journalism to a reactive and corrective function reactive is because When you have such a level of control in in these countries When you have the the Hungarian example where you have such an extreme level of polarization and capture the the first Intention and the first reaction of journalists is to be reactive They do not cover news But they set up media outlets that first of all are trying to criticize the government to investigate the government There are many media outlets in Hungary in fact that are doing only that they were set up with that purpose They are doing an excellent job. They are very important They play a very important role but all that and all the the work and the role they play is falling under the the reactive function and Secondly a lot of the independent media in central Nisdern Europe because you have that kind of capture and because Governments and government propaganda is expanding so much Another tendency among other media outlets is to correct things and I'm sure that you have seen these days a lot of Initiatives that are focused on fact-checking Media outlets that are entirely covering only the things and the lies that are promoted through state media Again, as I said, there is nothing wrong with the reactive With the reactive journalism, they are important is our investigative Journalism outlets that are doing a great job and they are important In fact, there is nothing wrong with the corrective journalism because we need that in fact a lot of journalism Has to deal with that, but there is nothing in between and I think this is not a trend that we are going to see It's a trend that in fact we are seeing today in most of the countries in in our region and I only think that will intensify Especially with with the word in Ukraine. I think a lot of these things will intensify a lot of the government propaganda will increase And probably that the two trends will become even stronger than they have been today With that, I will let my colleague Christina take over the floor and looking forward to the discussion. Thank you very much Thank you so much Marius for this Gonna to join us after our next talk all the three of us actual here on stage Thank you for this very clear cut and concise as well as alarming Presentation can't wait to hear more about which publishing houses left the CEE Among them quite a few German publishing houses this publishing houses actually where I come from so they'll be interesting to delve a little deeper Into that process starting at 2006. I think you said in your Talk there can't wait That's our next speaker Christina she started out as a lawyer right at the time of the big system change In Eastern Europe in her native, Hungary Again political as well as technological change of course her work as a lawyer was concerned with questions of Media like funding of community radio stations self regulatory bodies Copyright and so on that's what she told me in our preparatory call for tonight. That was phase one She told me phase two She became a regulator for about a decade at the intersection of telecom media loss after 2010 when Victor Orban came to power She began to slowly leave Hungary and work in consulting for the European Council among other Agencies the OSCE and the UN in media subject matters Sending her not only two places like Uganda and Thailand But also next door of our evening's topic so to speak to Georgia Armenia Azerbaijan Kyrgyzstan and yes quite often the Ukraine Phase three entering academia again during her second PhD in teaching at University of Vienna As of this year, she works at the Alpenadria Universität in Clagenfurt in Austria as a senior scientist at Institute for comparative media and communication studies CMC Before we all join for a conversation the three of us and then it's your turn of course at home here on site with the Microphone let us hear more now On I quote from insult to injury the state of freedom of expression in Central Eastern Europe in the digital era Please welcome Christina Rosgoni Thank you very much for this very kind introduction and Especially that you took so much notes about my personal remarks so Welcome and also warm Welcome from me. Good evening to everyone offline and online to this event here in Berlin This city has been witness To the most tragic events of the 10th century But it also gave birth to a new and united Europe The fall of the wall became a globally iconic event and its images across Central and Eastern Europe came to symbolize possibilities of human freedom and hope for our shared futures and today Berlin is watched again being torn between various multiple interests and Its commitment to the democracy and ultimately peace freedoms of Sought and of expression Are our most precious liberties from the Baltics to the Balkans More than 30 years ago when the fall fell We hailed our newly gained rights to seek receive and impart information and All ideas and ideas of all kinds However, they were largely unaware About the intrinsic need for the limits and unequipped With the duties and the responsibilities Such freedoms should have carried This dichotomy has proved to be both detrimental and instrumental The tensions of freedom and of expression were not or not appropriately mitigated with responsibilities and The dear realities of the region traumas Interethnic tensions and historic aggression. I will suggest that the role and the value of free expression have been exploited By political economic and social processes this in turn made publics prone to digital waves of uncontrollable heat speech and Propaganda driven disinformation Responsibilities of the UT birers the state the media and the interlocutors Were systematically and pervasively ignored and undermined The consequences of this negligence were mostly local and restricted up until the emergence of the digital realm Today interconnected networks and platforms Explose the global costs of online speech harms I believe it is a unique momentum here in Berlin To take stock of opportunities of digital societies in central Eastern Europe. I Will do this tonight through the lens of the freedom of expression doctrine and this weaponization potential and as you will see I will reiterate and I will Come back to several points Marius Raghomir so gratefully and so expressively pointed out And I will try to contextualize and I will try to see a rise for our discussion tonight Digital societies in this region are embedded in a historically evolved and strategically manipulated communicative sphere It is experienced through several layers of distorted communication channels Within this context east is meant as a symbolic interlinked assemblage of different authoritarian models Shared remembrance of feudalist socialist and communicate communist past The joint suffering of a never completed democratic transition Neoliberal economies without labor safety Seedbird of throat and corruption multi-level poverty state capture and oligarchization These notions formed the joint vocabulary of the language we speak Without attention to actual linguistic differences the public sphere In central and eastern Europe was meant to be freed up from state control once democratization began their euro censorship Was repealed and the right to freedom of expression enacted in constitutions The newly formulated constitutional court adapted liberal theories of free speech While abolishing the remainder of the authoritarian past The rights for individual liberties were laid down by the courts in an activist manner Applying Invisible constitutions while being forced to settle issues and conflicts Deliberately unsettled by politicians the doctrine of freedom of expression was interpreted mimicking Libertarian theories on speech as a Distinguished fundamental right the source of several further freedoms for communications such as the press or of the media Generations of will argue or lawyers Me included back then were trained to believe in the power of truth to prevail within The liberated marketplace of ideas as we called it We were to draft new laws mainly concerned with removing all possible restraints To receive and impart information all this Without the alertness and the considerations about the risks of uncontrolled speech Within certain societies, which have never been educated on responsible or careful communication duties in return to freedoms where we perceived as prior restraints and Have been heavily fought against but our mediated realities were different and Intersected With decades of collective traumas Exploited for ideologies on tensions and conflicts media markets were opened and Investors of all kinds were attracted to liberalized market conditions commercial mass media was born in the wild east With no strings attached on many occasions and similar to lessons we have learned about the colonial past of other contexts Entrance showed very different faces to their homegrown audiences than to the new ones Journalistic values principles and ethics were left often left behind in their countries of origin along with safety nets of journalists the Societal role and public responsibility of the media in the in a democratic setting for largely and mainly abandoned With the very few exceptions these patterns still prevail and Render the media in central and eastern Europe Unaccountable and the publics to the status of secondary citizens under these conditions the mass media was abused by local and global players and finally captured Since the global downturn of traditional media and especially of the press amplified by the 2008 financial and economic crisis and the recent pandemic downfall Media markets by now are weak and beyond recovery Major investors withdrew from the region and transferred their assets to local shady businesses They were mostly oligarchs without any second thoughts on compliance or on duties and Responsibilities in exchange of their business freedoms the libertarian regulatory frameworks of which we were so proud before proved incapable and non-resilient Once they would have been really needed those who remained Witnessed several shades of censorship Market forces were increasingly being replaced by political ones and Ownership became locally concentrated and distorted in turn The very few independent media outlets are fighting for survival today In the press sector newly established and crowdfunded online only digital nomads are grasping for air And are fully reliant on social media platforms the public media the desire trustees of the European tradition of duties and responsibilities to free speech Never completed the transformation from state media to public media but acted as the agents and subjects of 30 years of transition and Inclusive and undistorted media ties public sphere has never come to realization The experience of enjoyment of collective or individual freedoms Has never been shared among the publics of historically oppressed nations Individual liberties were reserved for the elites Broad civic resistance against intrusions was systematically disabled and deprivation normalized The information power asymmetry only grew a Strong civil society as a potential countervailing power was only mentioned in Media development reports about the region but remained isolated and sporadic The marketplace of ideas regime clearly failed under these circumstances to cater for democracy This contested relationship between the media and democracy was observed by scholars like Paulo Mancini and Jan Cielonka as a Persistent regional paradox while the countries in Central Eastern Europe were set to be consolidated Democracies they have systematically abused fundamental freedoms such as of expression and the media The decades of democratic transitions as Ivan Krust have noted were perceived as the age of imitation The attempts of westernization of a region never ingrained and another project has also failed Europeanization in a similarly painful fashion The accession to the European Union was meant to import meaningful legal and regulatory safeguards Not only to individual but also to institutionalize freedoms The idea of Europe united Was narrated as the endgame of the democratization project Accompanied by enforceable minimum legal standards The four distinguished freedoms of the European Union were meant to secure the next and ultimate level of Becoming Europe However, these beliefs dramatically failed under the first real stress tests and Under attack by illiberal and democratic member states It became recently very clear that the free market rationale prevailed over the fundamental individual liberties of the citizens It was the moment when the European Commission denied having Competence in matters of freedom of expression and of the media when the illusion about Europe which unifies and protects Was ultimately lost Despite strong evidence delivered by the EU's own rapporteurs on non-reversible trends in decline in press freedom media pluralism and independence The enforcement of the European is Asian has been abandoned and the so-called Copenhagen dilemma blamed The lack of political will and vision the deliberate ignorance And weakening of the sanctioning powers of the European Union further exposed freedom of expression to assaults the net outcome increased vulnerability to global disruptions and regional challenges The EU failure saga was an exemplary case on the implications of distinction between Market driven and democracy driven freedom of expression Legal scholars like Maria Edgstrom or Eva Maria Svensson studied the damaging consequences of this discrepancy to gendered inequalities in the media In our case the market driven approach resulted in a strategic non-interference with the deterioration of media freedom the systemic commercialization and privatization of free speech in the market logic took high prices and Delivered tangible harms In the central eastern European context it has proved fatal in light of the very recent attacks of the media in Hungary, Poland and in Slovenia Additionally the western Balkan countries could also take vast advantage of EU worst practices While negotiating the terms and conditions of their accession It is against this background. We need to zoom in and observe the conditions of digital free speech So the media is caught by economic and political interests media freedom is eroded journalists work in precarious working conditions and are prone to safety threats and Especially women to online harassment The state media spreads propaganda rather than informing the public The rule of law was abused accountability schemes are usually nonexistent by regulators non-independent Publix are prone to hate speech and orchestrated coordinated disinformation online Information manipulation is amplified by algorithmic driven content curation techniques on social media platforms Similar disorders are of global concern, but there are several regional delicacies we need to consider here firstly Globally present internet intermediaries are de facto gatekeepers of information and knowledge They decide what when how in what context We can find and see on digital media platforms The decisions on controlling content and information I set are set by their own profitability driven internal rules Rather than democratic or public interest values They are in process of systemic opinion power Due to their unique position to access user data That tools to command and organize online attention and the ability to use that data and algorithmic tools for persuasion As Natalie Halverger contended this power created various layers of dependencies with direct effect to democratic processes and And this power situation was not attended anywhere in the world with appropriate safeguards nor checks and balances In Central and Eastern Europe this situation is further complicated Major digital platforms do not invest in local presence in fragmented small-scale markets nor in locally sensitive content moderation human resources Meanwhile, they are aware about the intrusions and abuses of the digital spaces by local interested parties By now we have a solid body of evidence of exploitative data practices by strategic manipulators and of strong correlations with the polarization of societies It is exemplary for example how digital platforms in the western Balkans within conflict-prone and vulnerable Park Publix Neglected their responsibilities and abandoned their online communities This systemic disconnect a so-called Terra Nullius The unattended digital communicative space provided a fertile ground For the proliferation of ethnic hatred Gender-based violence and several intersectional forms of hostility the digital public sphere became a better ground and Enabled the weaponization of algorithmic content Moderation and curation and the misuse of the digital infrastructure Social media platforms has also gained enormous economic power over legacy media And they have lost further ground for democratic performance, obviously Additionally, the public's are not equipped with media and information literacy Capacities as countervailing skills and capabilities And also there is a general lack of expertise Academics are siloed and civil society is absent from active engagement with harmful practices Under these circumstances the right to freedom of expression suffers both on the individual and on the societal level the loss of an open Inclusive and safe digital public sphere Perpetuated ethnic divisions eroded democracy and Societal cohesion Tolerance and ultimately peace and this is the moment we need to stop and look around There is a war Next to central and Eastern Europe What we have been discussing up until now series constructs considerations and implications Replicated into and became the awful reality of aggression war and death millions of people in This part of the world Have been cooling unsuccessfully for attention over decades They have asked for Transition justice they we Have demanded to finally settle the accounts Of the immense political social and human costs of a never realized democratic transition The digital public sphere is one of the terrains where this war has unfolded Information manipulation hatred online and digital propaganda for war Surrounded the interventions and the aggression Traditional media channels frame the narratives the dominance of digital platforms opinion powers was demonstrated In such momentums the arrangements was thinking through the fundamental rules of Speech and media in society are inevitable this is the time and place We need to contest and reconsider what constitutes the basic elements of a democratic society and The media's role within it States corporations large-scale Speakers and civil society have already begun heated debates about the values and principles of the digital information order a Stinker and scholar Monroe price urged we need to assert and Defend what are increasingly deemed old universal principles and understand the new forces The promise of the digital The so-called unique selling proposition was to be building a digitally just world But today we see feel suffer the evidence That over time the pioneers of progress and the technologies of liberation Have become the new builders of old authority The cause of many for a digital new deal Urge for a new consensus for democratic governance All actors of the digital have to be called on duty But those with qualified responsibility will have to take an account first In Central and Eastern Europe the answers to these questions were often Rooted in rebellion at the humiliations of 30 years of imitated transitions The public's today legitimately demand Urgent renegotiation about the freedom of expression dogma in a locally sensitive and inclusive manner The voice is to be heard and their pains are pains shared The disillusion of a never realized nor enjoyed freedom of the many Should contemplate the redefinition of the duties and the responsibilities of the few but powerful ones the central Eastern European Experience is of global relevance In conflict prone countries digital harms scale differently and matter more In societies without experience or even remembrance of liberties Right now at this stage of the digital transition the lessons learned could shape what comes next The traumatic consequences of non responsive neoliberal market driven freedom of expression to the loss of European values Call for urgent reflection and undoing Global anxieties challenges hopes and visions for a better digital future are imminent and direct and Just a few hundred kilometers to the east of Berlin They call for your attention and action to reclaim the digital Justice, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Is this on I don't have anything on my monitors now. I hear something Thank you so much Christina for this very engaging talk You just gave us you started out with ideology of free speech who even called it a dogma the free speech dogma and You closed with it to calling for a digital New deal now if you hear something like the ideology of free speech here, of course, it's being a very Western Sort of tradition the First Amendment of the American Constitution Is about the free speech and so forth. It's very sort of ingrained in Western thought What you call the dogma of free speech And you sort of pointed out that this sort of dogma made the transition in CEE much more difficult By following it because they didn't able to hate speech and so forth because there's not enough regulation Now if we pull this to try to pull this together the free speech dogma and the digital new deal How do they sort of interconnect and what would be the agency actually to call out for this digital new deal? Would this something would this have to be something to be called for on a European level? Are you calling for the EU actually to? Go into more regulation when it comes to free speech did I understand that correctly? Could you explore a little bit more about the digital new deal and who's going to bring it about? Thank you very much So there's a long list who should do what I would say Yes if we start with Europe I believe the role of the European Union and also its organs like the European Commission in abandoning The realization of freedom of expression is is unique I Do struggle me or so mentioned the Hungarian example. Let me stick with that Hungary is getting away for about 13 years of Disappuse and other than Letters sent by the European Commission to the government nothing else happens and my and I'm asking why is that and whose? responsibility is that So yes, my answer is the European Union and the European Commission do have a qualified Responsibility in that case as one of those Maybe Dr. Marius you want to Alongside the EU that should become So the evidence I have for example mentioned and and referred to That was that was the result of as a very extensive research in Bosnia-Herzegovina recently about the strategic non-existence of digital platforms in these countries and the systemic strategic leaving behind of the problems of hate speech of linguistically culturally Sensitive content moderation needs which would need investments Investments in human resources investment in in various various ways by by these platforms So the first to With a duty I would call the the the international organizations in that way But also the global media tech companies Marius I know you're very skeptical skeptical about regulating platforms if I'm correct And there are some of course many incentives in the European level to do that exactly But it hasn't really worked so far or had it hasn't brought us very far so far But the platforms themselves actually started reacting and doing things differently than they've done like five years ago So could you explore a little bit on that regulate platforms? Yes, you know and what are the platforms actually doing that you see happening in CEE that you know Does bring about some change? Yes Hello, yeah, I totally agree that there is a role for the European Union to intervene and I'm not sure although there are lots of Developments at the legal level, but I'm not sure that there is a role for any government And or for the you to intervene at the content regulation And I'm saying that based on the experience in recent years I totally agree that the European Union. I think looking back at the 12 13 years now Yes, he won the elections 13 years ago kept winning them They they should have intervened and they should do it and when I'm looking now at what's happening with the so much Debated discussion on the rule of law and linking that with the funds and the decision Of course in the current conditions They might want to justify that I think it's terrible because again these governments will get away with with that for another 40 years or or so So I think there is room for intervention when it comes to the regulation Especially because I'm coming from a former communist country and especially when I look back at the regulation in these 30 years across the region I Think on the one hand just to simplify Definitely there is a role for governments to regulate the tech platforms at the more structure level I think because they have a lot of power because they have the control over the narratives and because they have these immense Pool of users definitely they have to to be regulated as any other companies are regulated in terms of Market power dominant positions and all that but if we look at the content and what has happened In all these countries and in others and also when you see And we have done a study in that respect when you see the wave of laws that are using the pretext of fake news to actually Introduce legal restrictions against independent journalism not only in Europe, but in other places of the world I'm very skeptical and I'm I find myself sometimes becoming a kind of a fundamentalist Anti-regulation person thinking that the governments shouldn't touch that I Increasingly believe they shouldn't touch content regulation And then your question if the governments don't do that if the regulators don't do that then who should do it The social media. Yes, 10 years ago were very bad at that We know that but in the past probably three five years. They started to react more and now let's let's be honest I think in many cases they reacted because they saw an opportunity here Not to fall on the regulation of the government So in other words, they said let's do that because it's better for us to regulate and let the governments regulate it So but whatever they did it they started to react if you have seen a lot of projects on Facebook and Twitter for example labeling state media, which is an important step Of course, there is a lot of this debate there. How do you decide about that? Who decides about the criteria? And all that and that is a legitimate debate, but they still do something I'm not I'm not totally convinced that they are the answer that this is the answer for future regulation the tech company Self-regulating themselves. I think a totally new model of regulation has to be invented I don't know which one that will be But definitely I'm against any any attempt by governments to get involved in regulating content Yes for structural issues, but not content You made a joke in your talk a little bit well I have choked probably about a colleague of yours saying what kind of future of the media are you talking about and I'd like to take this up I mean I'd like to stress the not choking part of this joke so to speak And ask you if we keep talking about media and a lot of times we are talking about legacy or traditional media as they are called Being captured or not captured, but there's still legacy media press media even TV stations radio stations Of course What happens if they fail because they're losing money all over the place? They're not just losing money in CEE. They're losing money everywhere every publishing house in Germany is losing massive amounts of money except one which is the site at the Holzer Brinkgruppe which is a quite of a massive Consortium that is actually behind this weekly paper. Everybody else is losing money and We don't know what's gonna happen ten years from now We didn't know 20 years ago when they started in 2001 actually when we had the first Media crisis with a lot of layoffs Big publishing papers. We had a lot of concentration. We had a lot of receding regional journalism, of course also to a lot of concentration there And what I hear from you. This is all a lot worse in most of the CEE countries, right? So what happens if this process just continues if things actually worsen and we have to say well Media are just not going to be part of this transition to more democracy. Who's gonna step in? Who would gonna step in or who should gonna step in? Well, both Well, I think yes Definitely the I believe the media field and the journalism field are changing everywhere And this is not a recent phenomenon. It has been there for starting with YouTube in 2005 and the tech companies Print media is moving online. We know all that but while in a few Western European countries you see kind of A trend where media companies are settling for various subscription models funding models There are some emerging business models in the media in some places In other countries, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe. You have a problem because you do as I explained The very fact that you have that captured with regulation media outlets the government pouring money into the media What is happening? You do not have a business model and you do not have Companies willing to develop one because it's not possible to develop one if we talk about Hungary again Where the government controls most of the media if you want to actually be successful there? I'm just imagining as an investor You have to set up something that will fight the whole market and just imagine what that would look like So it looks really impossible, but I'm not trying to be That pessimistic I think these are developments that have taken years and things can be done and get getting back to your question I think it's quite difficult I think media companies are kind of if avoiding the region for various reasons because simply they will fail In fact, there was a wave of companies that exited the market So why would any of them come back? but I think there is a major role for for Western the Remaining liberal democracies to actually step in and think about designing large funds for the for journalism There has been a lot of discussion about that for more than a decade and from now and now and then things happened They met and they they made pledges, but something really serious has to happen You have the rich liberal Democracies in the world that should really be aware in especially when you see what is happening now in Ukraine And when you see governments stepping up and increasing their investments in propaganda media, they have to simply Pull together resources to fund media in in most of these places and other places. I think You both talked a lot about polarization of course and They're really hard-working conditions not just for publishing houses, but for Individual journalists as well, especially women with online harassment Now if you talk about online harassment of women and polarization, this of course sounds very familiar In all of Western Europe and probably all of the world so to speak Can you tell a bit more of what's specific about polarization in CEE? Terrain's that you talked about Christina. What is well polarization? Unfortunately the very recent past and let's talk right now not about the war yet or not in full scale because that will be Probably an other not an even evening, but another Serious, yeah, so but let's talk about the pandemic. I think the pandemic delivered All the examples all the evidence what polarization means how Possible it could have been that people sitting so next to each other Have seen received different realities how it has been possible that people believed that Vaccination would kill them would chip them would put them under surveillance of Control and risk their lives and the risk their lives of their families and their beloved ones This is what is polarization about this is what is polarization is bringing lives and deaths and I'm sorry to be so I Don't know emotional about this This is what we have seen and this is what we are witnessing right now. This is not anymore about Being you know theoretical about these questions. We see what is happening and we see How much what is the human cost of this? Well, let let's do talk about the war actually and I see what what News we usually do not get to do not get a lot of here is how the war is covered in CEU CE countries Except Ukraine of course where there's something else happening right now as we all know But some of us are a little bit surprised about how Poland Is doing its job right now with the refugees actually because we got a whole bunch of other news In the last 10 years we said oh, okay. Yeah, we didn't expect that Or a lot of people didn't I didn't to tell you the truth so can you tell us a little bit about you know Countries with heavy media capture as Poland's the Czech Republic Hungary and so forth. What's How is the war reported there has something changed there even in captured media actually since the war began what has happened there What is happening or what has happened or what is happening there? I mean has has this war actually Changed some of the foundations of what you both described as media captures in those three countries I mentioned just now. Let's say Poland Czech Republic and Hungary because of You know, this is very recent so I cannot Talk you about, you know, five years of research evidence. It's not about data Therefore I can only talk about my personal experience being a Hungarian native speaker Hungarian citizen In Hungary, there are two different realities going on right now It is very similar there for one part of that country. There is no war, but there is defense interventions and this narrative is Propagated by the so-called Public State media on on several multiple channels amazing amounts of taxpayers money to a very very Successful level. This is propagated through all captured private media stations. So it's a Russian birding so to speak absolutely If I go to I live in Vienna if I go to Budapest and if I have to drive I Love to I love to usually love to listen to radio If I do this being already within the borders of Hungary and I try to switch from round radio channel to the other one And it's the news hours You won't believe but you listen to the same news Across channels across radio stations because it's the same orchestrated state media Broadcasted news, it's like if you were be in the 50s and Then comes the digital and then comes all these narratives on the digital platforms thereby money Advertising government advertising that is flowing in into Facebook that is going into Instagram that is going into all these platforms are Helping to display the same narratives to digitally communicating publics So nothing changed actually in the light of recent events. It's even worse. It's even worse. Okay. I see well Maybe a last question to Marius before we open this up to the public The role of radio be it public private independent captured Whatever I mean in many we've had this in this discussion before that's why I'm actually asking I'm really curious about it that in some Western countries the UK is one in Germany also The radio has higher trustworthiness In the public then it has had before actually This whole media crisis actually increased the trustworthiness of public radio In certain states. Can you tell us a little bit something about what happened? But a specific role of radio and some of the CE countries you were looking at well on yes, it's true especially when you look at the Journalism and the media across central Eastern Europe The economic crisis affected media generally and traditional media Very much so the print media but but all the media outlets in the country especially commercial ones and radio was part of that But if you really look at the data and if you look at the economic models of the radio stations commercial and public Usually is funded by the by the state or by taxpayers through the license fee there is indeed quite a Resilience in the radio field in simply in terms of the audience people listen to radio radio doesn't need necessarily high investments like in television or Or other fields so you have you have that that I think you have the trend in in in many countries It's not noticed because people tend even like scholars or researchers or Experts in covering the media they tend to oversee the Not paying attention to the radio because it's not the big You know television has a lot of influence you look at that you see who sells what what TV station you look at print media Because in many countries they own large newspapers and radio is always there they exist But when you look at that they are in fact even some commercial media successful when we did a number of studies covering Slovakia Czech Republic Romania in fact radio stations are profitable and they have been profitable during all these years When it comes to capture to the more ideological and content related issue Is not much to say because usually that the capture phenomenon is not stopping at the The limits between media outlets is not I'm going to capture the television station. The whole thing is very in fact the the In Hungary, which is a textbook case of media capture. It has been done and it has been built across Across audiences. It was not the prime minister and the oligarch saying let's now try to capture the radio They looked in a in a very holistic way and and try to take over key media outlets, whatever they were So to on from from that point of view radio is is part of the where where you have a highly captured Environment radio is part of the capture is part of the propaganda. There is no difference in that. Okay, let's open it up To the floor so to speak here on site Before we take questions from the digital realm from slide all Please Yeah, thank you very much for this really interesting presentation So I realized while listening to you how difficult it is for us to imagine What it must be like to live in countries with a public sphere that is so different from Overseer in Germany But I have one specific question the reporting about the upcoming elections in Hungary say Says that there is a fair chance that all one will lose the election the way you the way you present the public sphere that sort of hermetic Reporting makes that very unlikely. So that is I've been wondering about that How is it possible that An opposition to the government is forming to such an extent without any established public media Well, I'm not a political scientist. I'm just a citizen who is going to vote I'm sorry to say I don't really see any real chance for for any meaningful change But next to that I really wish us not only to Consider what we have been talking about here post Marius post me only to the context and and and Restrict to the context of Hungary because it's much more and much much way more about that it's The lack of something that is called public service we In Europe in Germany in that part of Europe where we really believe in European values and principles. We really really Believe still believe that it is something that is very very important and In very recent moments and and incidents in many contexts the public media really proved and lived up to this challenge and As a trusted source of information for citizens. This is something that is non-existent not only in Hungary, but most of the countries The systemic downplay of the media as Marius Demonstrated with data over 17 over the years of of this trouble of Investors and their presence there This is really leaving the digital places spaces totally Abandoned to those Platform driven manipulations Or platform-based manipulations rather than that That right now we can see the very very direct harms of and and again, this is not specific to one single country so What I'm trying to say is that what is happening here cannot be stopped by a borderline because the effects of Absolutely direct and imminent To any country including Germany. Thank you. There's another question in the back. Yeah And thank you very much. I was just I just received a mail by lobby control Who are currently looking at the digital market policies that are being decided on from the EU level? so I I Felt like that is the most direct way to To control big techs because I do think there are policies happening, but not enough So what I was thinking was the the European public is kind of Forming in a new way since the lockdown and the the the boundaries between public and private broke down through all of the home office and just the I think the normalization of this closeness of the internet the Labor the private life and the public life and they grew together and I was just thinking How do you see This transformative shift as a transformation of the democracy as we understand them like as the Deliberation that is at the core of our democracy in our system And if this deliberation doesn't take place anymore in the public sphere, can we even speak of democracy? anymore Not sure what the question is so well if I think what she says is that if Deliberation which is at the heart of what she understands as democracy is sort of receding in pandemic times Where we are mainly communicating through the internet? How is this going to play out right in the future if deliberation basically is receding? Because we communicate mainly digitally question probably would be is the digital realm not Yeah realm of deliberation. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I think that's a crucial question and I think This is especially important in this part of the world in in Central and Eastern European countries because of because of the the tradition the Regulatory tradition that has exist in these places and this is what I mentioned when I spoke about content regulation What I expect over the next? Coming years is a slew of loss In most of these countries that are going to to make communication access to information even even more difficult And that's why I think when when we talk about legislation intervention in the European Union And what is happening with with the laws that are adopted in Brussels? Maybe they work for some Western European countries and they create the space for regulation of tech platforms Which which can be done and should be done as I said, I'm a believer in in I believe in regulating them at the structure level, but when it comes to content To the content level to the way we deliberate we use the digital space I think that that's a that's a real danger and what I'm saying is We have we had a number of of laws that are that were adopted by by du we had the law or the GDPR That is misused in Hungary in fact to to clamp down on journalism Many of these countries are taking and misusing the the legal The legal developments at you level to close the space because that is the only space when we look at what we discussed today There was a trend of of taking over private media outlets There was a trend of taking over the regulation and the only space that is still open is the internet is the place where where you can still find Information and criticism and investigative journalism and that's that's the space that they that these governments are trying to close over the next Years how they are going to do that. I strongly believe that the law will be will be one thing and we can talk about concrete examples as as as I as I as I just said There are cases where governments are using you are misusing you regulation to force journalists to remove names of people from their stories And it happens several times and I think that is going to to continue I think that is the the biggest danger actually that we are facing because At the level of the the legacy Why do I call it the legacy media as we call it that the the the project is more less completed in many countries But when it comes to the space that really matters the space that is still free That is going to be the battle of the next years within the current context with the the war in Ukraine I I also expect a massive increase of the government's intervention in the media in various ways in funding in Setting up new outlets in in funding more propaganda channels because everybody now sees how important is actually to control the Narrative and within that that context. I think the the danger of closing Or controlling the the digital space is very real in our part of the world Thank you Mars. I think we had one more question in the back I think we're running out of time here a little bit before we have to talk to the people from Slido in a minute But there's one in the back. Please make this quick and I was wondering They that you did not mention two influences, which I think are particularly in Central and Eastern Europe one a tradition of strong state Surveillance that was kind of multiplied or made way more efficient and also kind of imposing self-censorship both on media and let's say private citizens In in Central East Europe and the second dimension the the strategic trolling that take took place in starting in Russia And basically impacting us in Germany, but even stronger you guys over there And setting a kind of standard of communication. That's really bad In terms of hate speech and not trying to get a message across but basically Sending the signal. There's no such thing as truth or facts But it kind of depends on your interests and how you sell your your ideas. I Understand that this is a Comment rather than a question. I think you're right And I can't couldn't agree more. This is what I could say Surveillance absolutely This is what I've called the several shades of censorship and how for example state surveillance of journalists and Abuse of laws against journalists how it affects their work Sometimes it is referred to soft censorship. This is also something that we have learned in the C context so couldn't agree more and Harassment online harassment and here there's a very important gendered layer because There we have already very Strong body of evidence how much women are usually disproportionately Affected by these kind of trolls and orchards orchestrated online harassment It's very interesting really quick to to make a reversal here Couldn't we also argue for the exact opposite and say societies that have been under surveillance for many decades are especially sensitive To captured media and and to propaganda outlets I mean that's what in part at least is happening in eastern Germany where people have been under surveillance for 40 years Many of them are saying oh we're having this mainstream media kind of looking present environment here And they actually argue with their tradition of being surveilled haven't been surveyed for 40 years So the opposite could be true, too. Is it? No, not in no I don't think it happens in too many countries if you look at all the countries in central history Europe They were all part of the communist regimes for for many years And yes, then there was an appetite for consuming for media consumption free information But then the reaction when you saw these trends that we discussed today that the ownership Concentration the I know they are very technical terms and but they have a very very key impact on the society They actually alter and manipulate the public discourse the information that people get And the reaction of the nature of the people across the region was not I don't think it was like what you describe here in most of course You cannot generalize is yeah, you cannot say that everybody reacted the same But if you look at the audience is not an Eastern Germany either yeah, but Exactly, so I don't think in fact that was a bit puzzling because when you look at what what happened And especially for nations that came after so many years of of control of the narratives After so many years of state media one state media organization controlling the flow of information and you see the The the power of manipulation propaganda media in these countries you are I think anyone would be a bit Surprised and puzzled by by the non reaction of of people to that and by the power of disinformation in fact And just commenting on the gentleman's point and what Christina was saying. I think that's what what the danger now is And this is something that I read in in a book published last year by a scholar in the states Taylor Dotson I don't agree with many of the things that he describes in the book But he's talking about the our transition that we didn't feel yet from the post-truth How shall we call it a period or phase of of communication development into the post-trust? Era which is much more dangerous. It's the time when yes, we are all used that everybody lies There are you know facts and known facts everywhere in the media They are propagated by state media But what is even more dangerous is when we reach the point where actually the trust stops having any value if at all Hmm We could make a whole evening about apathy and there are Actually surveillance societies and so forth with this leads to but let's see what's up in Slido Please Sarah, can you give us a couple of questions before we wrap this up here? Yes, of course. Thank you so much We received a couple of questions via Slido and I would like to start with a topic of independence of media The question is as for financial sustainability of the region's independent media How feasible how widely used are alternative financial models? For example crowdfunding subscriptions? I can briefly answer that I think that is those alternative models are the only chance at least for the moment for for independent media And again, I have to to all I think it's very important to think about What we kept talking today about the these two worlds of journalism in many countries and especially in the environments with very captured media outlets you have a massive Media field that has thousands of employees. They call themselves journalists working and being funded by the state And then you have very few media outlets that it's a very slim sector with a few media outlets that are doing Investigative journalism and that are struggling financially. Well, those media outlets are the only Example of independent journalism and they in fact are funded through these alternative stories of funding crowdfunding funds or grants from Foundations and all that but that is not that is not the future you cannot you cannot expect George Soros or Whoever in the West to fund you in your life. That is not a business model because the captured media too big Right. Yes, exactly. So it's yes It is happening in fact this more this funding models are very important to exist because otherwise This outlets wouldn't be able to operate but on a longer term. This is not the this is not the future I think the future is a combination of funding models But one element that must be there is the subscription you must have people involved if people do not pay for your journalism You have no future Sorry just to so it's not feasible the answer is it's not feasible the very few ones The other ones I've got the digital nomads at the crowd-funded ones It's just a very tiny element of any business model But the vast value transfer that is happening between the media and the platforms without Unsettling the impact of this value transfer and there's so many other things including state Advertising and state funding there is no feasibility One more from Slido Sarah, of course We have received another question to regulation of platforms Can the attempts of regulation of disinformation be considered as censorship? Regulation of platforms as censorship That's the question No, I think it was regulation of disinformation whether it can be regulation of disinformation, okay? Yes We see in many countries that this is also something that is weaponized and and journalists who work were called and criminalized escape for What was the the the Hungarian name of the skate one? Those who were spreading disinformation they were threatened by criminal offenses This disinformation was actually the critique of the government's public health instruments So criminalization of this information is a very very difficult and Let it put it this way Usually against international norms and standards and freedom of expression. It's not the best way to go One very quick one from Slido before we really And this overtime session here then maybe another one to independence of media How do citizens deal with the situation? This probably is to the situation in Hungary. How do they evaluate and perceive the information they receive through the media? Well, I think you're our viewer refers to the the discussion about propaganda and how I guess right that was the question how how state media or how media in Hungary are covering the war and yeah I think Cristina said it all but just to add I wanted in fact to add when we talked about that I think The what is happening with the coverage of the war in Hungary? What is happening with the coverage of war in Poland? Which is not pro Russian propaganda in fact really shows how politicized the whole field is because and how Related to the election cycle is because in Hungary the whole discussion debate has to be put in the context of the upcoming elections they in fact they are Coming in less than two weeks and that was the whole discussion coverage was actually driven by the the political power and Primarily by the prime minister who needs to secure elections So what you have in Hungary is pro Russian propaganda on the state media or pro government media Which is most of the media in the country and that is because there is a large part of the voters in Hungary that Who in fact support that and they support that because there have been more than ten years of pro Putting a friendship of friendship with with Putin and an urban where people actually saw Russia as an ally but on the other hand there is a very thin line there where The prime minister in Hungary also recognizes that there are people who are against the war simply against the the aggression And they assimilate that I believe with with the power in Russia And he at the same time doesn't want to scare those people off and what what he's doing is sometimes in public speeches He's He's talking against the war. In fact, he uses that to attack the opposition He he actually said that the opposition wants to send troops and weapons to Ukraine Which they never said and on the other hand he orders the state media because that is how it works in Hungary He orders the state media to to be pro Kremlin and pro pro pro Russia Because of his very close relation with with Putin So it's a very difficult way to for people not living there I think it's a bit difficult to really understand why is he playing this balancing act But we have to really think and we have to think in the case of Poland and other countries about the election Fact that that is very that is crucial. I think in in in how coverage of the media is is carried out As a very last question now, um, we've had great almost mythical not necessarily true internet digital moments In geopolitical events in the last 20 years most of all the Arab Spring, right? In Cairo and all of northern Africa Where people said well the internet actually Co-organized those type of revolutions because I mean none of the traditional media they were all state controlled Could or would participate in that movement. So we had this great internet move didn't turn out so well We know that now but the initial spark of the movement Was definitely there and definitely had a digital reason now. Do you expect something Similar to happen in certain CE countries because we see what we see now media wise in Russia's pure dystopia You can be jailed for saying the word war, right? You cannot say this. It's still a special operation Everybody knows this everybody keeps reading about this. I'm sure this information is getting through um, so you sort of await a new sensibility towards State captured or private captured media So to speak in the future is this going to set off a new digital movement You await something like this in some Eastern European countries who must be clearly afraid as many Berliners are as well Well, the last optimistic but two and Truthful answer would be no it Actually no is the answer that it's not going to happen by itself So there is no not hope that there will be an Arab spring type of revolutionary whatever And and then the new generations are going to rise up and organize on the internet and then social media platforms a revolution against the The narratives so to say this is not going to happen um Several things could happen Definitely the the orchestrated propaganda could be brought up and should be and must be Stopped There is a lot to do in terms of regulation of what digital platforms have to invest in in terms of not Letting their profitability override the safety of See of the of the citizens Of people who are harassed who are Targeted who are bombarded by trolls. So there's a lot to do also in that sense and also there is a lot about educating I don't really like this word but rather The empowerment I think would be the right the better word here of old young generations to to use these technologies to get Truthful information, but that also needs a lot of other Arrangements, I think education is fine in this context. It's one of the partnering agencies. It's called civic agency for No federal agency for civic education. So I think you are fine with this Thank you for this closing statement. Christina. What's your take on this? Do you expect anything digital to happen in the near future? No, I totally agree I don't I don't see that things are happening online and you see in fact Most of the initiatives that that break the media capture are happening only online But I don't see the moment that you are talking about and and that is linked to to One factor that I think is very important and very few people In fact analyze it, which is the the long-lasting impact of the cap of the media capture phenomenon The cultural impact, right? Yes the question the impact on audiences So wow if you have for as in Hungary or other countries Czech Republic was threatened by by a similar media capture phenomenon Some years ago. Now these are these are this is a development that is going over more than a decade So you have a large part of the population that actually receives information for more than a decade Imagine how long is that from the same source of information and the impact of manipulation is huge And sometimes we People tend to speak or expect the elections As the save, you know the the moment where the nation and the media will be saved Thinking that if the opposition wins Everything will be fine media outlets will be suddenly independent tomorrow and everything will be great like 11 years ago. No The damage is massive these people have listened and consumed propaganda for 10 years a large part of Of the the population of these countries and that is not going away in in in one year It will take even more to actually go to a Level of normality so to speak so I don't expect anything happening there I think the the impact of manipulation and propaganda and capture is is really deep And I think it will take years until we actually Manage to to measure it. But on the other hand, I don't think the all hope is lost I think I think the internet the digital space is in fact the only space where where opposition resilience Diversity and pluralism will will happen in the future. There is no other space where where where such Such manifestations and such such developments in the media field can happen That is the only space and that that's why is really important to guard that space and to make sure it is not hijacked closed or Or captured Yeah, but I think the threat or the pressure on central and eastern european countries on all of europe Actually has never been as great as in this very moment For 70 years. Don't you think that is going to change anything? Change I really hope that this is going to Be a wake-up call to so-called western european countries to Overcome their business interests And take seriously that what is happening in this part of the world is not isolated anymore and they cannot They cannot let this go away. This is what I hope Yeah, I I think so and I think not not much in fact will will be changed I think on the other hand was going to happen as as we discussed is A growing role of the government because such an extreme situation a worse situation shows not only governments But everyone how important is in fact to control the narrative. So I expect worse things. In fact, we released today a study Based on a survey among 200 Or so journalists in many countries that was carried out a week or so after the the eruption of the war And there the expectations of journalists are very pessimistic and very negative They already have signals that in many countries the advertising budgets have been cut Companies informed them that they are going to stop the funding They see a lot of problems in terms of their very the very operation of their businesses There is a lot of discussion about the impact on population people actually buying the pro-russian narrative So I don't really know. I don't think we'll we'll see that but Again, it's not I don't want to end on this pessimistic note I think that that's the challenge we we have to face now and we have the space to do it and we have to defend That space that's crucial if if we if we move into an era of splinter net or Or a closed and controlled internet and digital space. I think it's going to be the the The worst probably moment of the digital era that we have we have seen an experience so far Well, I didn't promise anybody a happy ending. That's for sure and we didn't get that either Very unusual evening and a very unusual time. Thank you for making the trip and filling us in And what's happening in central and eastern europe is a very important evening to our audience to me. That's for sure Thank you so much. Mario Strago Mia Cristina Rosgoni. Thank you for being here. Thank you for watching