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Manipulation The attitude of many Poles towards Ukrainians got worse

This thesis was spread in social networks and in the media of the Polish segment. Reports say that Poles' attitude towards Ukrainians has worsened. Like, the majority of Ukrainians speak Russian and boast of expensive cars, which is typical for the “Russian world”. Therefore, the Poles allegedly feel hostility towards certain categories of Ukrainian refugees and say with confidence that the attitude has indeed changed for the worse. Later, the material was picked up by users and the media of the Ukrainian segment. The authors of the original article for Rzeczpospolita refer to a likely study conducted by the University of Warsaw, which allegedly refers to the deterioration of attitudes, and cite the words of the President of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland, which allegedly confirm these studies. This is manipulation.

The case was investigated by the fact-checkers of the NotaYenota project, who found that there was absolutely nothing about the “Russian world” or expensive cars in the study. The quote taken by the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita for their article belongs to the President of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland Myroslav Skorka. That is, this quote belongs to one person, although an official representing the interests of both Poles and Ukrainians, but this was not in the study and the quote does not represent its results. In the material itself, they are talking about the deterioration of the attitude of Poles towards Ukrainians, which was noted by Rzeczpospolita at the beginning of the article: “Many Poles are changing their attitude towards them [ed. Ukrainians] for the worse, research shows”.

According to the study, in January 2023, 80% of respondents had a positive attitude towards refugees from Ukraine. 8% of respondents perceived Ukrainians negatively, and 12% - presumably neutrally. When asked if the attitude towards refugees from Ukraine has changed over the past 6 months, that is, since June 2022, a quarter of Poles surveyed (25%) answered yes. Accordingly, for 75% the attitude towards Ukrainians has not changed. These 25% of respondents answered that the attitude has changed, without specifying how. That is why of the one quarter of those surveyed who further answered that their attitude had changed, 68% said that the attitude had changed in a negative direction. However, this is not representative, because in general nothing has changed for 75% of the respondents.

So, Rzeczpospolita journalists manipulated the data and used a quote from the President of the Union of Ukrainians as justification for their thesis, although according to the study, 75% of Poles have not changed their attitude towards Ukrainians.

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