The press release was prepared by Anton Hrushetskyi, Executive Director of KIIS

Recently, a draft of the Law on Amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes of Ukraine regarding the establishment of responsibility for individual actions against the foundations of national security of Ukraine was published, which proposes the introduction of punishment for the dissemination of false information.

This initiative caused a stir in society and is actively discussed. We suggest looking at the problem from a slightly different angle, namely, how Ukrainians themselves assess their ability to distinguish quality information from misinformation and fakes. To begin with, it is appropriate to recall the individual results of a comprehensive research conducted by KIIS on the order of the Civic Network "OPORA" in July 2022[1]. So, first of all, it is obvious that the landscape of communication channels has changed with the transition to the distinct dominance of digital channels (especially Telegram channels[2]). Television still plays an important role, but in the dynamics we see a significant increase in the use of digital sources. At the same time, 40% of Ukrainians believe that "now there are so many different sources of information that it is difficult for me to determine which of them provide truly truthful information about events" (52%, on the contrary, despite the variety of sources, can identify those that provide truthful information ). At the same time, 56% place responsibility for the fight against fakes and false information on the state itself (on citizens themselves place this responsibility 35%). The opinions of Ukrainians regarding the regulation of the media sphere are quite contradictory. On the one hand, 60% believe that "the media should be able to reasonably criticize the actions of the government" (against 32% who want the media to support the government's line). On the other hand, 60% "to strengthen defense against the enemy the state should more actively control information in Internet sources" (30% consider this a restriction of the rights and freedoms of citizens).

In addition, earlier in 2018-2019, KMIS asked respondents on the order of the NGO "Media Detector" the question "Do you think that you yourself are able to distinguish quality information from misinformation and fakes?"[3]. In December 2022, KIIS added this question to its own all-Ukrainian survey to analyze the dynamics (see the research methodology in Annex 1). If in February 2019 52% answered that they could distinguish quality information, then in December 2022 – 78%, including from 21% to 38%, there were more people who answered firmly "yes". The decrease occurred both at the expense of those who consider themselves unable to distinguish qualitative information, and at the expense of those who previously could not determine their opinion (representatives of both these categories became fewer).

It should be taken into account that in 2019 the survey was conducted by the method of personal (face-to-face) interviews, and in 2022 - by the method of telephone interviews. In part, the dynamics may be the result of a different method, but the magnitude of the changes indicates that between 2019 and 2022 Ukrainians really became more confident that they are able to distinguish quality information from misinformation and fakes.  

Graph 1. Do you think that you are able to distinguish quality information from misinformation and fakes??

In the table below, the self-assessment of the ability to distinguish qualitative information is given by individual socio-demographic categories (in fact, among all categories, the majority consider themselves capable of distinguishing qualitative information, although the level of confidence varies).

Table 1. Do you think that you are able to distinguish quality information from misinformation and fakes?

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

 The question we asked the respondents refers to the respondent's subjective self-assessment of his ability to analyze information. Most likely, if testing by more objective methods had been applied, the results would have been less satisfactory and would have revealed a significant overestimation by Ukrainians of their analytical skills (and this is a global problem, not only in Ukraine).

It is important to consider the following three points. First, the growth in confidence is taking place against the background of a sharp increase in the use of digital sources, where there is no absolute or even visible leader / leaders, but instead there are thousands of Telegram channels, YouTube channels, online publications, etc. The landscape has become very fragmented, and the media user can find many alternative sources. Secondly, research in the social sciences shows that the subjective perception of the situation is more important than the objective circumstances. In other words, in this context, if Ukrainians believe in their ability to distinguish quality information, it can really be used by enemies to manipulate public sentiment. However, the issue of combating this and choosing the optimal countermeasures remains open. Thirdly, Ukrainians are usually skeptical of bans and severe punishments. Therefore, any such initiatives should be relevant to the purpose, considered, reasoned and based, among other things, on discussions with the public.

Annex 1. Survey methodology and methodological comments on the representativeness of telephone surveys conducted during the war (relevant to the survey period - December 2022)

Survey methodology

During December 4-27, 2022, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". By the method of computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting), 995 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) were interviewed. The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived on the territory of Ukraine (within the boundaries controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022). The sample did not include residents of territories that were not temporarily controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022 (AR of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left the country after February 24, 2022.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) did not exceed 3.4% for indicators close to 50%, 3.0% for indicators close to 25%, 2.1% - for indicators close to 10%, 1.5% - for indicators close to 5%.

Under conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. In particular, if back in May, among all the respondents we interviewed, 2.5-4% lived in the territories occupied after February 24 (and this corresponded to the percentage of those who live there, because the generation of telephone numbers was random), now, due to the occupiers turning off the telephone connection, we managed to interview only 1 respondent (out of 995) who currently live in occupied settlements. It is important to note that although the views of the respondents who lived in the occupation were somewhat different, the general trends were quite similar. That is, the impossibility of interviewing such respondents does not significantly affect the quality of the results. There are other factors that can affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions (see methodological comments below).

In general, we believe that the obtained results are still highly representative and allow a fairly reliable analysis of public moods of the population.

Methodological comments on the representativeness of telephone surveys conducted during the war

Even before the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, there were a number of factors that negatively affected the representativeness of the surveys (for example, the absence of a census for more than 20 years). A full-scale war, of course, greatly affects representativeness and complicates the work of sociologists, but does not make it impossible. Access to reliable data on the state of public moods remains relevant both for Ukrainians themselves and for our foreign partners (who, as the events of recent months have shown, often underestimated and did not understand Ukraine and Ukrainians).

At the same time, in order to maintain objectivity, it is necessary to understand what limitations the war imposes on the conduct of sociological surveys. First of all, we pay attention to large-scale population movements. As of December, the UN estimates the number of Ukrainian refugees at almost 7.9 million. Obviously, due to various reasons, it is difficult to consider these data unequivocally accurate, but in general, the quite significant scale of departure from the country is understandable. There is no exact data on how many of them are adult citizens, but, most likely, it is about half. Among about 30 million adult citizens (estimated at the time of the full-scale invasion), it can be roughly estimated that about 15-20% have left the country, and it is impossible to reliably survey these citizens using telephone interviews. Even more citizens have become internally displaced persons, but they have a much smaller impact on the quality of telephone surveys, since almost all of these citizens have mobile phones and are reachable to participate in the survey (in fact, 12% of the respondents of this survey are IDPs).

Another important problem is the accessibility for the survey of the population of the territories that were occupied after February 24, 2022, due to the conduct of intensive military operations or due to interruptions in telephone connection. Now there is practically no connection. In May, 2.5-4% of respondents lived in these territories, now in the sample of residents of these territories - only 1 respondent out of 995 surveyed. According to our estimates, the territory occupied by Russia as of the beginning of September (occupied after February 24, 2022) accounted for about 9% of the entire adult population. Taking into account the mass exodus of the population from these territories (most likely, we are talking about at least half of the population), as well as the fact that significant territories of Kharkiv and Kherson regions were liberated from this period, we estimate that no more than 3-5% of the total adult population of Ukraine were unavailable due to connection problems.

In our opinion, a more significant impact on representativeness can be either a generally lower readiness of citizens with "pro-Russian" attitudes to participate in surveys, or the insincerity of those who did take part in the survey (taking into account the obvious facts and prevailing opinions in the media regarding the Russian invasion , some citizens will not want to say what they really think "in public"). If to talk about the general readiness of respondents to participate in the survey, then in recent surveys we see either the same indicators or somewhat lower (although it should be borne in mind that the lower readiness to participate of "pro-Russian"-minded citizens can be compensated by the higher readiness to participate of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded  citizens).

We conducted a methodical experiment in May, which shows that the citizens who are currently participating in the surveys in terms of demographic characteristics and meaningful attitudes are close to those who participated in the surveys until February 24, 2022. Preliminarily, we see some shift in the direction of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded citizens, which is reflected in up to 4-6% deviations for individual questions (in the direction of more frequent selection of answers that correspond to the "pro-Ukrainian" interpretation of events). In our opinion, in the current conditions, this is a rather optimistic indicator.

However, this experiment does not give an answer as to how sincere the respondents are now in their answers. To assess the sincerity of responses to sensitive questions, in July we conducted another experiment using the "imagined acquaintance" method. The results showed that the respondents generally answered the survey questions honestly. That is, we have reason to say that during the interview, the respondents really answer our questions sincerely.