Disinformation in Bulgaria: choosing between alternative truths

Bulgaria has elected a new parliament for the fifth time in two years. The unstable conditions are also reflected in political debates, which are shaped by social media and a flood of disinformation.

Even after the re-election, Bulgaria faces an uncertain political future. There was unrest immediately before the elections Bomb threats against schools in several major citiesincluding in Sofia.

Cyber ​​experts suspected on Bulgarian radio that they might be dealing with extremist hacker groups who wanted to spread panic and fear, presumably from Russia. No explosive devices were found in the affected schools.

Bulgarian students are said to be at the front

Russia’s influence on the country, politics and the media worries many experts. Russian propaganda about the EU and NATO and the invasion of Ukraine is widespread in Bulgaria and is also adopted by prominent politicians.

Recently, for example, the false report was circulating that Bulgarian schoolchildren should be given military training and then sent to Ukraine to fight against Russia. As is so often the case with such false reports, there is a kernel of truth, as a fact check by Bulgarian radio shows: Schoolchildren are actually supposed to be taught about military strategies. However, purely theoretically and only a few hours. Practical exercises are not planned, nor is it in any way helpful from a military point of view to use poorly or not at all trained fighters, as experts explained to the radio.

Facebook as a news agency

In contrast to many other European countries, Facebook still plays a major role in distributing information and disinformation in Bulgaria. The political discourse takes place on the Meta platform, which works like a news agency for the country’s major media, the writer Georgi Gospodinov stated at a conference of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Sofia on Tuesday.

One reason for Facebook’s huge influence: There was a lack of large quality media and newspapers in Bulgaria. Researcher Ruslan Stefanov agrees, arguing that the lack of good political leadership increases distrust of democracy. And this lack of trust promotes the spread of false reports and disinformation – as well as approval of authoritarian ideologies.

In addition, there is a media landscape that is characterized by dependence on politics and oligarchism. In addition, explains Stefanov from the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia, there is an older generation of journalists who are used to using and trusting Russian sources – and still do to this day. An investigation has shown that more than a quarter of all reports published by the state news agency BTA are in favor of Russia or are based on information from the Russian news agency TASS. There is therefore concern, Stefanov continued, that the Bulgarian news agency is a Trojan horse for Russian disinformation in the EU.

The Russian embassy in Sofia also plays a relevant role in this context, which develops a wide reach with its postings, presumably by supporting automated or inauthentic accounts in social media, and can thus set topics in Bulgaria.

Hair in the bread and cold water in the bathroom

The Russian narratives about an irrational and completely ailing EU are repeatedly taken up by the Bulgarian public and politicians, as various examples show: Be it the alleged EU approval to process human hair in bread or the hoax that people in western Europe have little food left and will soon be eating their pets.

Such alleged catastrophe scenarios have been appearing in the Russian media for months, but are also being adopted in other countries such as Bulgaria. At the end of 2022, the tourism minister of the Bulgarian transitional government picked up the false claim that in Western Europe there is no longer any warm water and in an interview with “Nova TV” praised the advantages of Bulgaria as a tourist destination: “Tourists are now free. One of the slogans is ‘vacation without restrictions’. In Europe they are forbidden to swim etc., and with us they can rest as they please.”

Enemy image of “gender”

Among others, the nationalist and pro-Russian party Vazrazhdane (“Awakening”) is one of the main drivers for this kind of disinformation. The party is agitating against the introduction of the euro in Bulgaria – and in particular the “gender ideology” has become a battleground against the EU and liberal values, explains journalist Irina Nedeva in an interview tagesschau.de.

The term “gender” is like a devilish spirit that haunts the debates, says the chairwoman of the “Association of European Journalists” in Bulgaria. This also includes the pejorative term “Gayropa” for Western Europe; As in Russia, there are various nationalist and populist politicians, but also representatives of the Orthodox Church, who repeatedly use this enemy image.

The journalist explains that the enemy image “gender” has been particularly popular since 2017, when there was the largest disinformation campaign in Bulgaria to date – against the Istanbul Convention. The agreement aims to protect women and girls more effectively from violence. The contracting states undertake to combat violence against women, prevent discrimination against women and strengthen women’s rights.

Politicians from various parties stormed against the agreement. The defense minister at the time spoke of a “scandalous text” and accepted the false claim that the convention was intended to legalize a third gender. Discourse on the Convention has been plagued by false claims that the Convention is intended to encourage the promotion of same-sex marriage in schools. The Orthodox Church also positioned itself against the agreement with misleading claims.

To this day, it is argued in Bulgaria that the Convention is incompatible with Bulgarian law. The background is that the English term “gender”, which describes the social construction of gender roles, is only related to biological sexes.

Politics avoids LGBTQI* topic

Presumably motivated by the great success of the campaign against the convention, populists launched attempts to initiate various referendums in the years that followed. For example, against the introduction of the euro, for the transformation of the parliamentary system into a presidential system, or against the introduction of “gender ideology” into the education system.

Journalist Ivanov says that since then, many politicians have avoided topics such as LGBTQI* rights because disinformation means that they can hardly be discussed objectively. Rather, the accusation would then be made that one wanted to abolish the traditional family.

Russian propaganda at ministerial level

And so many experts are not very optimistic about Bulgaria’s future. Skepticism about Western vaccines was particularly acute here during the pandemic, and while Putin’s standing plummeted following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s armed forces were widely portrayed as disorganized gangs of neo-Nazis using civilians as shields and committing war crimes Ukrainian citizens committed them, only to blame them on Russia. Refugee Ukrainians are also the object and target of disinformation and false reports. Even ministers in the government at the time accepted the Kremlin’s propaganda that the war of aggression was merely a special operation.

Some fact-checking projects, funded in part by the EU or international foundations, are attempting to stem the tide of disinformation. In addition, the newly established Ministry of e-government is the first Bulgarian institution to take active action against disinformation. But experts only see this as a first step.

Researcher Stefanov notes in an analysis that Bulgaria is still in the early stages of curbing the spread of disinformation and protecting public discourse. Thousands of IP addresses associated with Russian disinformation were blocked. In addition, there have been talks with Meta to improve the procedure against false reports on Facebook – with little success. Once again, the platform is playing an inglorious role in spreading disinformation – and is obviously only reacting to growing public pressure, which has so far been lacking in Bulgaria.

Editor’s note: Patrick Gensing was chief editor of the ARD fact finder until 2022 and now works part-time as a freelance journalist.