A masked 24-year-old drove onto Kraków’s main square on Saturday and opened fire, killing six and wounding 16, including two police officers and himself. He was arrested after an exchange of fire with police.
Prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation on Sunday, saying evidence showed he also killed three people in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, identified as his parents and sister. The government declared November 8 and 9 days of national mourning.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said on Saturday evening the attacker acted alone and was fascinated by far-right ideologies.
Disputes followed quickly. On Monday, interior ministry spokeswoman Karolina Gałecka said prosecutors would receive a case involving an AI-generated image purporting to show Kierwiński shaking the attacker’s hand. A journalist from private, conservative/populist TV Republika outlet was among those who circulated the fake.
Katarzyna Bąkowicz, a SWPS University researcher who studies disinformation, said Poles had previously come together after national tragedies, including the death of the pope and the Smolensk crash.
“This time, however, that did not happen; we divided immediately. I see this as a very dangerous signal showing that the world we know is fading into oblivion”, she told Polish Press Agency (PAP).
She said upcoming parliamentary elections, which could shift the balance of power, were shaping reactions. Politicians, she argued, exploit such events regardless of moral boundaries.
“The more emotive something is, the easier it is to add politics to it”, she said.
Bąkowicz said the urge to share unverified information and to label the perpetrator was natural. “To feel safe, we need to know who this person was, so that, for example, we can avoid meeting someone similar”, she said.
She criticised some media, including TV Republika. “The media have stopped even pretending that they are not political”, she said.
She said the events should prompt a debate on regulating the information space, though this would take political courage.
Krzysztof Grzegorzewski of the University of Łódź said the case showed news media giving way to identity-driven outlets, even in coverage of events far removed from politics.
“Political parallelism can be defined in one sentence: tell me what television you watch, and I will tell you how you will vote”, he said.
He said social media, which he called “algorithmic platforms”, deepen the effect by favouring emotional content and closed information bubbles that reinforce polarisation.
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Source: PAP