The European Values Center for Security Policy published the analysis “Year 2020: How the Czech government lost to two waves of disinformation about coronavirus”. The media reactions of some actors to an extensive analysis lead the authors to issue the following summary, which explains the social danger of the statements of selected public figures who served the disinformation community by denying the seriousness of the pandemic situation and spreading false conspiracy theories.
Every public figure is responsible for his or her public statements, and the social significance of the spread of conspiracy theories increases during the deep national crisis that the Czech Republic is going through. Therefore, the team of the The European Values Center for Security Policy considers it its role to describe and point out these socially dangerous trends.
During an interview with DVTV (link here), Veronika Víchová, Deputy Director for Analytical Activities, discussed one of the formulations in the above-mentioned publication on 8 April 2021. The subject of the discussion was a summary of Jan Ledecký’s disinformation statements. These were summarized in the report as follows:
Although he later deleted his comments on Facebook, his videos can be found uploaded to YouTube. In them, Ledecký spoke about covid-19. He described the pandemic as a marketing campaign for pharmaceutical companies that want to force us first with tests and then with vaccines. He said that the vaccine will be mandatory, and if it was not, it will turn out that we can live without it.
It is a summary paraphrase of a number of his statements made in the quoted video, not a literal quotation – the text was not in quotation marks, which it would be if it were a direct speech. In order to better understand the selection and inclusion of Janek Ledecký, Daniel Landa and Daniel Hůlka in the list of celebrities spreading disinformation during the pandemic, we present a selection of exact quotations from both personalities:
