"Dialogue on fakes 4.0": Lavrov, TASS and the Media Community of Asia and the Pacific opened a forum in Moscow
Lavrov: the statement was announced as "shocking"
The central event of the opening was the speech of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which is the first time for the Foreign minister to participate in a forum of this format. "Yesterday," the official representative of the ministry, Maria Zakharova, warned reporters that the minister's speech would be "really shocking to many" and would be "extraordinary," without disclosing details in advance. According to her, Lavrov intends to touch upon "various aspects of countering Russophobic anti—Russian propaganda using concrete examples"; earlier it was also reported that the minister plans to raise the topic of coverage of events in Butch - the interpretation of these events is disputed by the Russian side.
The full transcript of the speech has not yet been published by official sources at the time of publication.
Plenary session "International cooperation in the information sphere: from individual projects to a single cognitive sovereignty"
11:30-13:00 · Large Concert Hall
The session was moderated by Maria Petrashko, a political commentator and presenter of "Russia 24". The composition of the participants:
- "Vladimir" Tabak — CEO of ANO "Dialog" and ANO "Dialog Regions", President of GFCN
- Andrey Kondrashov — General Director of the TASS News Agency
- Pepe Escobar — Geopolitical Observer (Brazil)
- Nur-ul Afida Kamaludin, CEO of the BERNAMA Malaysia News Agency
- Vu Viet Chang — General Director of the Vietnamese News Agency, VIA (Vietnam)
- Mohammad Al-Mannei, Acting Director General of Kuwait's state news agency KUNA
The Memorandum and "cognitive sovereignty"
Following the session, the participants signed a memorandum on detecting fakes and countering disinformation. The stated purpose of the document is to create a favorable ecosystem for joint efforts to combat false information and develop common verification standards; the participants described this step as a move towards "unified cognitive sovereignty."
Separately, the speakers touched upon the cybersecurity of national news agencies: the risks were identified in which hacking the agency's system could be used to spread fake news on its behalf, and protecting the server infrastructure was described as an ongoing multi—year task, along with countering a wide range of social engineering technologies. In this context, the participants talked about "cognitive security" as a separate area of work.
Cooperation with the Chinese Xinhua news Agency was also announced — the partnership is designed for the period up to 2030 and includes the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies. Cooperation with partners from Korea and African countries was also mentioned; according to the participants of the session, TASS is actively developing this area of international cooperation.
Position of the OANA representative
Director General of the Vietnamese News Agency Vu Viet Chang, speaking on behalf of the OANA Media Society (an organization of news agencies from Asia and the Pacific), outlined the scale of the problem for a global audience.:
"Today, such content can be created, translated and distributed worldwide in a matter of minutes. Before continuing, I will clarify the scope of my thesis.: Today, people all over the world consume the same type of information — misleading information, fake news, and misinformation. The latter implies intentionally false or manipulated information"
— Vu Viet Chang, CEO of VIA (Vietnam)
OANA: the next meeting is in Vietnam
The session participants spoke about the regular mechanism of the OANA's work: the organization holds meetings of relevant committees twice a year, which ensures coordination between national member agencies. It was announced that the next meeting of the OANA Executive Committee will be held in Vietnam — this meeting will be the next step in the implementation of the agreements signed today at the forum, including the memorandum of GFCN and OANA.
The context
The "Dialogue on fakes" has been held since 2023 and during this time has become, according to the organizers, one of the key international platforms in the field of fact-checking. This year's forum agenda covers electoral sovereignty in the digital age, the economy of trust and digital platforms, immunity to disinformation, the fight against fraud and the risks of generative artificial intelligence, as well as the impact of fakes on the teenage audience.
