The Czech Republic's disinformation influencers: Unfulfilled ambitions, personal debt, and ever more radical content

Despite this fact, such influencers are constantly doing their best to reach others through ever more emotional, radical messaging. Their motivations range from political ambitions to the need to pay off their personal debts.

“Help my children once I’m gone,” the former TV Nova reporter Jana Peterková, recently convicted of disseminating disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and given a suspended sentence, has written in an emotional commentary posted to her Facebook profile. She also includes an email address in her call for aid to her children.

Writing to that address generates an automated answer with a request for financial support and a bank account number. Neither her verdict of conviction taking effect, her being on probation for two years, or her being fined CZK 250,000 [EUR 10,530] have stopped her yet.

Peterková has been persisting in spreading delusions even after Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine last year. When her appeals trial was held at the Municipal Court in Prague, her supporters went so far as to break through the courtroom doors.

Emotions and radicalization of this kind are supposed to awaken the attention of the media, along with the feeling that there is a big, anti-system movement behind Peterková that manages to transform words into deeds. This approach is also being taken by the other disinformation influencers who became active at the time of the pandemic – after all, if they fail to keep developing their activity, they will be forgotten and others will take their place.

A fundraiser under seven collections proceedings

Peterková carefully documents her personal conduct through social media, whether her subject is disinformation about COVID-19, disinformation about Russia’s war on Ukraine, or alleging the 1992 dissolution of Czechoslovakia was “illegal” and that no country called the Czech Republic actually exists. She has almost 50,000 followers whom she does her best to entertain with her content – and she also does her best to get money out of them.

She has collected financial contributions not just for her children, but for her attorney, for an alleged presidential campaign, and to support herself when she was hospitalized. “I’m in awful pain, it’s really horrible what has happened to me. Whoever can help, write to me,” she posted from hospital before continuing her activity full-time three days later.

Peterková also holds “webinars” for her fans about how to raise money. She does this despite being under seven collections proceedings, according to information from the central collections registry, Cebia.

Social media users regularly post critical reactions and mockery beneath her posts. However, her target group is that of strong supporters of conspiracy theories and disinformation first and foremost.

According to a poll by the iRozhlas station of public broadcaster Czech Radio, roughly 6 % of the population falls into that category. According to the authors of the survey, these are people who “demonstrate a comparatively high interest in politics”.

At the same, however, such persons “strongly distrust the political system and are not firmly convinced that democracy is the best way to govern.” Peterková shares such people’s favor with many other conspiracy-theory influencers.

“Well-water” from an ordinary faucet

Others are attempting to win followers just as Peterková does, such as the recently-convicted Tomáš Čermák and Patrik Tušl, or the disinformation purveyors Jakub Netík, Ladislav Vrabel, and Pavel Zítko. These influencers have smoothly transitioned from COVID-19 as a subject to criticizing support for Ukraine or actively, directly supporting Russia.

All are also asking or have asked their fans for money for “their work”. Kristína Šefčíková of the Prague Security Studies Institute, who has worked on a study mapping the financial and organizational structure of the Czech disinformation scene, explains that: “The pandemic amplified the trend of the disinformation scene transforming itself from just being media outlets which were not transparent to now having ‘faces’ associated with it in public. Content that is manipulative is no longer limited to the format of a blog or a web page, but circulates on platforms such as Facebook, Telegram and YouTube.”

The actors creating the content that is disinformation have also become more interactive, according to Šefčíková, including by using live broadcasts and videos where they reach out to their followers in an informal, quite personal way. Conspiracy-theory influencers can be seen on social media every day in situations which vary.

Such influencers film themselves while sitting at home, strolling down the street, or driving cars. They use smartphones to stream online and explain their positions on current events to hundreds and sometimes even thousands of viewers.

Allegations that are either absolutely deceptive or unverified and dubious sources are their stock in trade. Most began this activity during the pandemic, when direct communication with a narrow group of fans turned out to be a good source of extra income.

The amounts of money collected in their personal or their transparent bank accounts range from a couple of thousand Czech crowns to the higher hundreds of thousands. The actors mentioned above also collect money to organize protests.

Ladislav Vrabel, who sells real estate in Serbia and faces more than one collection proceedings in the Czech Republic, raised almost CZK 1.5 million [EUR 63,000] through his wife’s transparent bank account for a demonstration. Today he collects money both through his non-transparent personal bank account and a transparent one.

Jakub Netík and Pavel Zítko have previously sold dubious goods, such as the drug Ivermectin for use against COVID-19, which has never been authorized by any regulatory agency, or a blow dryer for water that costs tens of thousands of Czech crowns and allegedly turns tap water into “well-water”. A common, frequent feature of these conspiracy-theory influencers is that they are all under a comparatively high number of collections proceedings – Netík, Peterková, Tušl and Vrabel are all hundreds of thousands of crowns in debt.

Candidates for president as a storyline

Conspiracy-theory influencers are just one part of the Czech Republic’s disinformation scene, though. It also includes classic disinformation websites, different clubs and organizations born during the pandemic, or the representatives of some political groups such as the “Freedom and Direct Democracy” (SPD) movement, the Tricolor party, or the newest such movement, “PRO” (Právo Respekt Odbornost – Law, Respect, Expertise), established by entrepreneur Jindřich Rajchl.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the disinformation scene was created above all by alternative media outlets online spreading such conspiracy theories and disinformation. It was not transparent, for the most part – disguising and hiding the identities of its contributors, its financing and its ownership structure was standard,” says Šefčíková, adding that currently it is exactly the above-mentioned self-declared “freedom fighters” who are having more of an impact.

According to her, these are different “influencers, celebrities, ultra-right or ultra-left politicians and individuals who started their involvement with the disinformation discourse for their own personal reasons, for example, to raise money for paying off their personal debts or entering politics.” Jana Peterková and Pavel Zítko, for example, claimed they wanted to run as candidates in the recent presidential elections.

In retrospect, however, it turns out that the elections rather served as another occasion on which to create a new storyline to which they could attract fans to support them. In reality, the political potential of such people is minimal because their attitudes are exaggerated and extreme.

Moreover, their personal interests frequently collide, causing such actors to argue among themselves – they do not want to collaborate with each other. An example is exactly the above-mentioned Peterková and Zítko, who actively criticize the “PRO” movement, run by Rajchl, while he has so far been milder in his rhetoric about them.

“For the time being, the disinformation purveyors are mostly remaining an anti-system force on the fringes of both the media space and the political spectrum. In the case of many such activists and civic movements, however, it is not possible to rule out their aspirations to become future politicians, because they regularly collaborate and interact with the political part of the disinformation scene and frequently have failed political pasts of their own which led them to civic activism,” say Šefčíková.

In the Czech Republic, therefore, disinformation has yet to link up with mainstream politics and does not have as much of an impact on society as it does, for example, in Slovakia. Disinformation is commonly relied on by the mainstream politicians there who have long been the front-runners in the runup to September’s elections to the unicameral legislature.