Fighting for the Truth: How My Uncle Overcame Lies

Winner of the All-Ukrainian rating "Book of the Year" 2020. Nomination "Obriya", special and adaptation literature / lifestyle
BookForum Best Book Award 2020 competition - Personal award of the director of the Ukrainian Institute of Book Oleksandra Koval.
The book debunks the myth that an ordinary person cannot recognize lies in the media and social networks. Maybe, but for this you need to follow information hygiene. Simple rules that everyone can master, regardless of age.

The main events take place from spring 2019 to summer 2020. The book has two main characters.

Uncle Ivan, a simple, smart hard worker who can't keep up with information and because of this constantly makes noise. He is a patriot, lives in Ukraine, but understands that everything is terrible in the country. He is a person of the Internet, but of analog training. He understands that everyone is manipulating, but he doesn't know how.

And his niece, who is engaged in exactly what she does, laying the rake for such uncles, manipulating them through the media and social networks. She grew up on her uncle's stories about Soviet propaganda and how people tried to resist it.

The book describes the turning point when the uncle finally got confused, and the niece decided to go to the other side of the force. Instead of manipulating, she taught ordinary people to resist these manipulations.

At first, she tried to understand why Uncle Ivan turned from a seasoned fighter against the lies of the Soviets into a person who steps on all the rakes of populists, scammers, creators of magic pills. She tells her uncle how information functions in the digital world. How online media, television, Facebook, Viber, YouTube, Telegram work and manipulate. How he can protect himself and become a fighter again.

The uncle is studying diligently. He even takes on the patronage of his friend Mykola. Together they go through the financial pyramid and the coronavirus infodemic. They see how much information kills people. They know from their own example that there are effective and simple life hacks. Friends decide to teach fellow villagers to filter information. However, here they are in for an unpleasant surprise - people don't want this, they just want to live well.

And the heroes of the book overcame this, although they had to sweat, but they did find an approach to some of their acquaintances and taught them information hygiene.