Fahrettin Altun calls for public broadcasters to combat disinformation

Türkiye’s communications director has said that a substantial component of global strategic communication initiatives involves addressing the rising destructive activities facilitated by emerging communication technologies.

“Today, the field of strategic communications includes combating disruptive elements such as hybrid threats, cyberattacks, and systematic disinformation campaigns,” Fahrettin Altun said on Saturday in his address at the TRT World Forum in Istanbul.

Altun said these harmful activities attempt to directly exploit social divisions, and aim “to fuel polarisations and conflicts in the international area.”

He highlighted that destructive activities, especially disinformation, take on a nature that incites violence and nourishes hate crimes particularly during times of crisis.

“Today, we all discuss widely about hybrid threats, lies becoming commonplace, hegemony of fake news, truth becoming unimportant, and manipulations of democracies along with new media technologies,” Altun said.

Conscious broadcasting

Recognising that disinformation poses a direct threat to human life, public health, democracies, and economies, Türkiye is actively working on formulating national strategies to counteract it, he added.

“It should be the responsibility of public broadcasters to protect these valuable efforts and to defend the truth,” he said. “In the post-truth era we live in, the main actors who will fight for the truth are public broadcasters, and so they should be."

Altun reiterated that public broadcasters can uncover misinformation and disinformation through their journalistic expertise, utilising digital tools and employing adaptive strategies.

He added that confronting these challenges and mitigating their adverse impacts is undeniably challenging.

“However, we have no choice but to embrace digitalisation in such a way as to create opportunities for public broadcasters.

“As public broadcasters, we need to leverage digital tools to provide high-quality content that has staying power and qualitative longevity,” he said.

Emphasising the necessity of upholding the commitment to delivering accurate and “speedy information” to the public, Altun said public should be educated about contextual knowledge.

“We cannot leave the public at the mercy of so-called journalists who are not trained properly and who are only seeking the next viral content."