Académica USM participates in the first session of the Commission Against Disinformation

The general director of Liaison with the Media, María José Escobar is part of the team of nine experts that will be dedicated to the study and analysis of disinformation on digital platforms.

USM Communications.- With the first milestone of the constitutive session, the work of the Commission Against Disinformation began, the panel of experts brought together by the Government through the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, in order to study and analyze the phenomenon of disinformation on digital platforms, providing advice to the ministry on this phenomenon and its impact on the country.

The panel is made up of nine experts in the field, including María José Escobar, an academic from the Department of Electronics and General Director of Engagement with the Environment at the Federico Santa María Technical University. In this first meeting, the guidelines of its work were clarified, delimiting that its scope will exclude the media from the analysis.

In this regard, Director Escobar pointed out that “disinformation on digital platforms is a global phenomenon that must be studied and analyzed in depth from different angles. The diversity of formations of this commission allows us to contextualize this phenomenon to our national reality, allowing us to prepare a first report with a diagnosis of international experiences and our country’s capacity to delve into its effects.

In the same way, the Minister of Science, Aisén Etcheverry affirmed that “this commission is made up of people who have a lot of experience in this matter, who have had links with international organizations that are studying these issues as well and today.”

The commission will issue two reports presenting the results of its investigations. The first must be delivered at the end of August, while the second will be announced in November, deadlines that Minister Etcheverry herself assures are “limited”, but that she considers appropriate for the experts who “have been studying these issues long time”.

The work of this commission, which will meet every fortnight and whose operation will be ad honorem, will end after delivering the aforementioned reports. Among the members of the commission, in addition to Dr. Escobar, are Lionel Brossi, Claudio Elórtegui, Ingrid Bachmann, Patricia Peña, Juan Carlos Lara, Paulina Ibarra, Fabián Padilla and Pedro Anguita.