MINSK, 22 May (BelTA) - Social media needs to be regulated at the legislative level, Bojan Brkic, deputy editor-in-chief at the Radio Television of Serbia news desk, said during an excursion to the museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk organized ahead of the Belarusian International Media Forum, BelTA has learned.
“During the media forum I will speak about the need to regulate social media at the legislative level and about the ways we can deal with the impact of misinformation in social media. I believe that the only way we can push back is to teach children and young adults how to use the information, whom to believe just as we teach them to buy food. After all, information products are very important but they must come from reliable sources,” Bojan Brkic said.
This is the third time that Bojan Brkic is attending the Belarusian International Media Forum. In his opinion, the forum discusses topical issues of modern media, provides an opportunity to network with colleagues from different countries. In addition, it is very important for foreign journalists to show what Belarus actually is, the expert added. “This time I have brought my operator with me to show people in Serbia how Belarus lives today, that it is a clean and honest country where people live peacefully and calmly,” he said.
For her part, Executive Secretary of the Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan Bayan Ramazanova said that it is only professional journalists who protect the modern media space as they verify all the information they convey to readers or viewers. “Responsibility is the main thing that distinguishes the official media from social networks because the latter is about unprofessional people without responsibility. If a journalist utters some words, he must verify the facts while a blogger does not answer to anybody. But we cannot do without social networks today. They have increasingly permeated our lives. Very often news outlets use videos shot by ordinary people – witnesses of an incident. We cannot disregard this,” she said.
“It is never too late to learn. Exchange of experiences and views is very useful and I think we will learn a lot of new things at the Belarusian media forum,” Bayan Ramazanova noted.
The 14th edition of the Belarusian international media forum Partnership for the Future: Journalism and Social Security will bring together over 250 state officials and public figures, diplomats, representatives of expert and media communities, journalists from Azerbaijan, Armenia, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Germany, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Russia, Serbia, the U.S., Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, France, and Estonia.
The international media forum has been organized by Belarus' Information Ministry, the Standing Committee of the Union State of Belarus and Russia with support of the Brest Oblast Executive Committee, the CIS Interstate Foundation for Humanitarian Cooperation, Belarus' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the CIS Executive Committee, the Belarusian Union of Journalists.
