The Diotima Center expresses its strong concern about the new commercial of the public television news program.

In this commercial, while the original purpose was to show how ERT’s public television stands against the galloping popularity of fake news tactics, the parallel of the news with the abused face of a woman is used inappropriately.

This rather dangerous for us misstep lies in the fact that two phenomena of completely different forms, gravity and extent are being paralleled. Gender-based violence can under no circumstances be put on the same scale as fake news.

As important as it is to be vigilant against the spread of fake news in the age of mass information, our reflexes must remain sharp against the neutralization of the psychological and physical trauma left behind by gender-based violence.

We believe that this particular TV spot is useless on public television, not only as a product of cheap marketing but as a project that defeats both of the aforementioned purposes – with the big loser in this case, of course, being the highlighting of gender-based violence as a deep-rooted social pathogen rather than a phenomenon of the times.

We consider its withdrawal to be self-evident.

Diotima Centre

12 October 2017