Between October 5 and November 5, the WatchDog.MD Community, as part of its current monitoring of disinformation regarding democratic values, also monitored manipulative and false messages targeting the gender dimension. Based on the evaluation of the content of 16 Telegram channels and one Facebook page, we found the following:
Based on the monitoring, we found the following:
- Gender bias is used for political purposes to appeal to conservative voters and to denigrate political opponents;
- Gender disinformation aims to reinforce stereotypes to undermine women’s rights and gender equality;
- LGBTQI+ rights are portrayed as a threat to society and to traditional values;
- Efforts to denigrate the Istanbul Convention continue.
In this report, gender-based disinformation means any false and distorted information that is intended to harm women or people of different genders and sexual orientations.