Pashinyan Addresses Fake News

For a young democracy like Armenia, protecting the right to free speech is more important than shielding the government from fake news, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a Q&A session at the Technical University of Cologne on January 31.

“Recently, we had a discussion about fake news in Davos. We all acknowledged that we have no idea what we can do to overcome this issue.

However, for young democracies like Armenia, I think protecting the right to free speech is more crucial than protecting the government from false news,” he stated, adding that it would be wrong to use state power to restrict fake news, as such actions risk infringing on people's right to free expression. “Fake news is a serious issue for governments of all countries today, but for our government and personally for me, there is a large amount of fake news in Armenian social networks about me, my family, my government, and our political team. However, it would be a misguided temptation for us to use our power to restrict someone’s freedom of speech to keep our audience away from fake news,” the Prime Minister emphasized, highlighting that the best means of combating fake news is through education and raising media literacy, which will help society distinguish between fake and real news.