Prague – Four out of ten Czechs and Hungarians believe that the information war is just a pretext for Western governments to limit freedom of speech. This is a higher proportion than in the other two Visegrad Four countries, according to research by the Central European Digital Media Observatory (CEDMO) based at Charles University in Prague. The survey also showed that for Czechs, the most difficult thing before the European elections is to discern the truthfulness of information about the future of the automotive industry. Elections to the European Parliament (EP) will be held in the Czech Republic on June 7 and 8. In the Czech Republic and Hungary, 41 percent of respondents agreed that the information war is just a pretext for restricting freedom of speech. In Slovakia, 35 percent of respondents held this view, and in Poland, 24 percent.
At the same time, 39 percent of people in the Czech Republic are convinced that their country is an arena of Russian information warfare against Western countries. In the case of Hungary, this opinion is less widespread, held by about a third of the population. By contrast, more people in Slovakia and Poland are convinced of the Russian-led information war against Western countries than in the Czech Republic. In Slovakia, it is 42 percent, and in Poland as much as 55 percent of the population.
One of the questions of the sociological survey was how easy or difficult it is for citizens to determine the truthfulness of news on specific topics before the upcoming EP elections. For almost half of the population of the Czech Republic, the most difficult thing is to distinguish true and false information about the European Commission’s policy on the future of the automotive industry, such as the ban on combustion engines. 49 percent of Czechs found this difficult. The second place, with a one percentage point difference, was taken by information about the war in Ukraine, and 47 percent of respondents identified the difficulty in discerning the truthfulness of news about the energy crisis, including price changes.
Approximately a thousand respondents in each of the four Central European countries participated in the survey between March and April. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, data collection was conducted by Ipsos, and in Poland by the Pollster Research Institute. Respondents were between the ages of 18 and 65.
According to reports from the CEDMO consortium of fact-checkers, in the first five months of this year, themes related to domestic politics have started to intensify among false narratives in the Central European online information space. The frequency of articles focused on this topic is gradually increasing with the upcoming European elections, and in the case of Slovakia, it was also influenced by the shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico. The second most common theme among false narratives was the war in Ukraine, which still predominated among disinformation stories until the end of 2023. In the Czech Republic, from January to May, false reports related to the European Union, particularly concerning the migration pact or measures introduced as part of the Green Deal for Europe, appeared prominently.