The public right to information plays a crucial role in preventing government officials from abusing power with an aim to extract bribes and countering attempts to undermine democracy. Any information held by state bodies, especially by state-owned enterprises, is still non-transparent or kept classified, and hence, Mongolians have limited opportunities to exercise their rights to information. In addition to that attempts to manipulate elections are made by spreading misinformation and disinformation. On one hand, the government cannot ensure citizen’s right to information, and on the other hand, citizens cannot distinguish between misinformation and disinformation.
Classified Information
The state and state-owned enterprises are required to provide transparent and open information for citizens under the Law on Information Transparency and Right to Information which was adopted in 2011. However, with the adoption of this law other relevant laws were not amended accordingly. Consequently, due to contradicting laws, state bodies and officials intentionally classified information that is supposed to be open to public.
The non-governmental organization Globe International has carried out a project called “Promoting the public right to information through legislation consistent to the international standards”. In this project, the organization conducted a case study and “Analysis of the act limiting the right to information”. In this case study, requests for specific information were made to 16 state bodies. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and the Authority for Family, Youth, and Child Development, an implementing agency of the government, did not respond to the request for information. Moreover, the study revealed that the right to information is getting further restricted in Mongolia. The number of information that was classified as state secret reached 22 between 1995-2004 and 565 in 2019.
LAW OF MONGOLIA ON STATE AND ORGANIZATION SECRET. NUMBER OF INFORMATION CLASSIFIED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF MONGOLIA
In Mongolia, information is secretive. Moreover, there is no agency responsible for implementing the Law on Information Transparency and Right to Information and, as a result, citizens cannot exercise their rights. Furthermore, a rise of classified information is becoming an underlying reason for corruption and unfair competition in Mongolia.
Misinformation and Disinformation
In Mongolia, citizens cannot fully exercise their right to information because information held by the state bodies is concealed. At the same time, it is becoming more common that the collected information is misinformation or disinformation. The public is not able to separate truth from misinformation or check if information that is disseminated through social or mass media is reliable and has verifiable sources. The public is likely to trust in widely shared misinformation and it is misleading society.
Furthermore, a deliberately disseminated disinformation leads to polarization of the society and weakens democratic values such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and protection of human rights. Disinformation weakens democracy by manipulating a democratic election, limiting the public right to vote freely, and lowering the trust in candidates and state bodies.
Certain countries are taking various measures to combat misinformation and disinformation that is vigorously spreading in our society today. Those measures can be organized in terms of their time frame into short-term and long-term.
A short-term solution is to readily identify misinformation and disinformation, and immediately expose it through social or traditional media to the public. Therefore, it is necessary to closely monitor and check information (Social Media Monitoring) that is disseminated via social and traditional media. The civil society organizations must be deeply involved in social media monitoring.
For instance, there is a fact-checking civil society organization called the Mongolian Center for Investigative Reporting (MCIR) in Mongolia. The MCIR checks whether information is reliable or not, and offers research and training on identifying misinformation or disinformation. In September 2019, the center launched a program called “Fact Check Mongolia” in collaboration with the German DW Akademie. The program aims to co hone the fact-checking skills of journalists.
Furthermore, the tools and software used for monitoring social networks in technologically advanced countries need to be utilized by the Mongolian mass media to a greater extent.
A long-term solution consists of teaching skills to the public that are necessary for finding information and reading any information critically. This means building citizen’s skills through media literacy. For instance, from 2018 all middle schools in Sweden began to teach specific skills and tools for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable information. In Mongolia’s middle and high schools, there is an urgent necessity of additional teaching on how to read and examine any information critically. Now is the time to equip citizens in offline and online forums with essential media literacy skills. The Globe International organized a meeting on “Media and Information Literacy in the Digital Era” to participate in improving citizen’s media literacy. In addition, they run specific programs designed to train investigative journalists.
Citizens can actively participate in the democratic process and establish good governance only if they have reliable information. An independent agency must be created to ensure the implementation of the Law on Information Transparency and Right to Information so Mongolian citizens can fully exercise their right to information. Moreover, an amendment of the relevant laws, particularly the Law on State Secrets, is needed. Appropriate solutions for combating misinformation and disinformation consist of media literacy education, inspection of information, and social media monitoring by NGOs.
2019.09.18
Trans. by Riya.T and Ariunzaya.M