The European Union was the first in the world to adopt the legislative act on the digital act and the digital market act - two acts that try to regulate the big platforms, put more responsibilities on those platforms to remove more quickly content that is illegal, terrorist and content that calls for hatred and violence, but also content that is misleading , and which tries to change public attitudes.
This is what he said in the audiocast of “Focus" “This is Bulgaria" the MEP from GERB/EPP Andrey Kovachev, in response to a question about what can be done to limit Russian disinformation.
"We are democratic countries, the EU was created by sovereign, democratic countries in which the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of expression are fundamental principles. That is why it is so difficult in a democracy to be able to oppose those who use democratic means to abolish democracy. And how far can the legislator intervene. Here, the line is extremely thin as to what is fake news and what is a targeted campaign to change attitudes. For example, the European Parliament insists on eating protein from insects, from insects, or the European Parliament bans Christmas and Easter. The European Parliament wants us to say no “mom" and “father", and “parent 1" and “parent 2". And all this is so bad, it is almost mandatory to eat there will be insect meal in every food.
I say individual elements of how attempts to change public attitudes change. And that they, if not immediately answered, spread, including to my great regret and disappointment, and intelligent people can fall into this trap of misinformation, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence, deep fake, with extremely well presented, prepared with half-truths “information" that are shared by multiple profiles. Unfortunately, very serious panic attacks can be easily and inexpensively induced in sections of the population. Just remember when in one neighborhood parents did not want to send their children to school because they would be taken and sent to Norway. And this is believed," Kovachev pointed out.
According to him, critical thinking and education are the two pillars that must be very well developed. Education, the responsibility of teachers, the responsibility of families, of young generations is not to trust a single source of information, but to be able to make their analyzes based on gathering information from different reliable sources, to compare, to analyze. To know history not manipulated, but as it happened based on original texts, original memories of participants, and not on disinformation campaigns of certain circles, or repeated communist manipulations. All this goes hand in hand, objective presentation of history, critical thinking, education and protecting citizens from such disinformation campaigns.
The MEP also pointed out that there is an extremely large amount of private property owned by Russians in Bulgaria, which is perhaps not a concern if it is for tourists, for people who like the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. But on the other hand, if it belongs to oligarchs, representatives of a political-economic oligarchic circle in Russia, whose capital is absolutely unclear, or it is clear that they do not come from their own salaries.
"These are some of the elements, here we also enter into the work of the Bulgarian services, of the Bulgarian governments and to the extent that they control these activities of foreign intelligence services on the territory of Bulgaria and on the territory of NATO.
The Euro-Atlantic parties GERB-SDS, I hope that colleagues from the other responsible Bulgarian parties can help this process to understand how such property came to be and to find a way, legal of course. We also had a second debate this week on the mobilization of Russian assets on the territory of the democratic world and in particular the European Union to rebuild Ukraine, which destroyed something. It's the same in our personal lives, if you're at fault for damaging someone else's property and car and you don't have insurance, then you're financially responsible.
If the bombs, drones, missiles of the Russian Federation destroyed the infrastructure, the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine - homes, hospitals, educational institutions, then it is very logical and legally justified that the Russian Federation bears the responsibility, and the financial, among other things, and criminal, and international, and financial responsibility for the recovery of these damages. It is about 300 billion euros, which are in the central depository of the EU and are owned by the Russian Central Bank, and which, for the time being, at the first stage, only the income from these 300 billion is provided to Ukraine.
They are only a drop of the assets of the Russian Central Bank, but it is fair and that is what the European Parliament insists on - that the asset itself should be mobilized to support the recovery of Ukraine. Courageous legal skills must be made here in order to have a legal basis for such actions," the MEP added.