Moldova: Workshops Tackle Gender-Based Disinformation

Lilia Zaharia

Media Expert

Monday, 22 April, 2024

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As Moldova prepares for presidential elections later this year, disinformation and attacks against women candidates are expected to increase.

Alexandra Piscunov, the mayor of Vadul lui Isac, a village in the Cahul district, witnessed a precursor to this during November’s local elections, with gendered abuse and disinformation rife both online and in the media. 

"It was a dirty election campaign, and unfortunately, both at the national level and especially at the local level, women who wanted to run for office were slandered with various lies,” she said. “I think education is needed to make Moldovan society more tolerant [and knowledgeable] about this issue.”

Piscunov was among more than 100 journalists, educators, local officials and media students from across Moldova who participated in a recent series of IWPR workshops on how to identify, tackle and counter gender disinformation.

In recent years, the phenomenon of deceptive or inaccurate narratives about women and LGBTI individuals to harass, discredit, or demonise them for political or ideological purposes has taken hold. Moldova is no exception: the country has seen a rise in rhetoric exploiting gender stereotypes, perpetuating inequalities and stigmatising marginalised groups, such as the LGBTI community. It soared in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, exacerbating an already polarised political scene.

Nick Raistrick, a British journalist co-authored IWPR’s recent Gender Disinformation Handbook, explored the phenomenon’s root causes and key ways to address it. Participants agreed that as well as supporting a more tolerant society, state institutions needed to do more to sanction disinformation that incited gender-based hatred and discrimination.

The March 2024 workshops were run in the capital Chișinău as well as in the southern municipality of Cahul, in the northern city of Bălți and in Taraclia, a town in the country’s south with a large population of Russian-speaking ethnic Bulgarians.

“To counter gender disinformation, critical thinking skills are needed. We need to develop a factchecking mindset, and discuss these issues at a local level. Communicators, campaigners, and content creators need to be popular, not populist in their approach; and men need to be involved in these discussions.” Raistrick explained. 

Participants engaged in hands-on activities where they discussed how gender disinformation typically uses various techniques, such as misogynistic comments that reinforce gender stereotypes, online harassment including threats of violence and even cyber-attacks.

Ruslan Crețu, a physics and mathematics teacher from Bocani, a village in the northern Fălești district, told participants in Bălți that gender-related discussions were often seen as taboo. Teachers needed to explain the issues in accessible and simple language, so that the younger generation could understand how individuals targeted by gender disinformation were discouraged from expressing opinions or participating in political and social activities. The impact, ultimately, was to reduce pluralism and diversity in society.

“In the countryside, information has always been transmitted verbally, which makes it easy to distort it, it is probably the most difficult to combat,” Crețu said, adding that social media platforms had often replaced radio, TV and newspapers as sources of information. However, their dissemination was faster than people’s abilities to discern what was true or manipulated or constructed.

“It is the duty of each of us to not only draw attention to misinformation and discrimination, but also to report them to the competent authorities and do everything possible to prevent and combat them,” he continued. “The training we attended helped us a lot to find the right weapons in our fight.”

Media disseminating pro-Kremlin narratives retained a large audience, particularly in the regions, explained Anghelina Gaidarji, a journalist from Taraclia.

“It is almost impossible for people here to talk about how disinformation targets minorities when the minority community is itself a subject of Kremlin propaganda,” she said. “The issue should not be neglected and the population should be informed, even if the discussions very often become contentious.”