Roman Matys, President of the International Investment Office, looks at the Polish NASK report on how social networks respond to disinformation, explains why platforms have little reason to remove fake content, and argues that Ukraine should join the European coalition against disinformation that Poland is building.
For six months, the Polish state institute NASK sent social networks reports about disinformation. More than 65,000 of them. 76% got no response at all, and only 7% of the flagged content was removed. Out of 60,000 reports, X took down fewer than 1,500 posts.
You can look for technical explanations. I see an economic one.
Why platforms leave fake content online
The social media business model is simple: the longer you look at the screen, the more ads you are shown. And we stay longest on whatever scares us, makes us angry or turns us against our neighbours. The algorithm feels no shame, it just counts. A made-up post about a “Ukrainian killer” gets more comments than the police statement debunking it, and the platform earns money on that.
I am not claiming that anyone in Silicon Valley writes Russian propaganda. They don’t need to. It is enough that speed of distribution matters more to them than the truth. A moderator who knows Polish or Ukrainian and understands the local context costs money. An unchecked post makes money. That choice was made long ago.
Who pays for disinformation
What follows is a pattern economists described back in the days of factory chimneys over a river. The factory takes the profit, and the community cleans the river. Same here. The company earns on our activity, and states get the bill for the consequences: analysts track thousands of accounts by hand, security services hunt bot networks, schools teach children to recognise fakes. The platforms kept the profit and left us with division, mistrust and hostility between neighbours.
Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski called the platforms a silent ally of the Kremlin and threatened fines in the tens of millions and even blocking. The sceptics are right about one thing: he talked about switching platforms off a year ago, and without a law these threats will stay words. Real leverage will only appear once the president signs the bill now before the Sejm. Without that signature, the corporations will keep treating Poland as a market where they can take their time.
What this means for Ukraine
For us this is a direct issue. Among the content NASK flagged and could not get removed are AI-generated profiles of “Polish soldiers” spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda. Every such bot works for Russia free of charge. It hits Ukrainian-Polish relations, our people in Poland and, in the end, the investment climate, because an investor will not come to a place where neighbours are learning to hate each other.
That is why I support a tough approach. If you want to make money in Poland or in Ukraine, keep moderators who understand the language, answer government requests within hours, and pay when you ignore them. Factories were once forced to install filters. Platforms will install them too, as soon as the fine costs more than the fake.
Poland is now building a European coalition against disinformation. Ukraine should look for its place in it today. If the coalition takes shape without us, others will write the rules for our information space.