“Mass media is not to be blamed for the spread of biased information” – Asadjon Khodjayev

 “It is quite impossible to withhold information from circulation. Because modern technology shows that if you hide it, with time it will be revealed anyway. Now information is circulating freely and this testifies to ongoing reforms to ensure freedom of speech.

As a result of the development of information and communication technologies in Uzbekistan, individuals have the opportunity to demand freedom of speech and rights. People are expressing their opinions on social media. There are different comments, some of which are critical. Public authorities should listen to these criticisms and analyze their work based on them.

There are currently more than 1,000 press secretaries in public organizations. We need to pay attention to how well they work, their skills and speed, how good they are at conveying messages in the media and social networks to public administrations.

In the pandemic situation, we have seen that there is a need to quickly deliver various decisions made by public authorities to the population. If they are not made public on time, it will lead to the spread of various biased information.

We sometimes hear that media representatives and bloggers are to be blamed for this – no, the reason is public authorities are not ready to communicate with journalists yet.

If the government responds quickly, there will be no room for unfounded information.

Therefore, we believe that we need to constantly strengthen the dialogue to ensure the transparency of the activities of government agencies,” the AIMC Director said.