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Democracy at Risk: Empowering Citizens to Confront Disinformation Critically in Age of Algorithms and AI

Avatar: celine zenkovic celine zenkovic

A topic that is very dear to me as I wrote a paper about it is Disinformation as a challenge of the legal order. Disinformation and the possibility of manipulating local as well as international news are a serious danger to society. Democracy is legitimated by the people and their opinions are based on what they see going on in the world around them. Fake news, Deep Fakes and the usage of AI make it extremely hard to differentiate truth and fiction. Using a lot of social media that is often flooded by unfiltered content, spreading certain information cannot only polarize but also manipulate the political happening and opinions founded on that information, especially dangerous for young people. The EU must therefore invest in the empowerment of the citizens, especially the very young and very old ones, and their critical thinking skills to not only identify Disinformation but also resist it. To infect the legal order and democracy in that way should also be made part of criminal legislation and there must be more initiatives and public awareness campaigns, as well as media education in school. You cannot stop the radical dynamic of the internet and AI anymore. Therefore the EU must raise awareness to its dangers and strengthen the ability to build democratic values and opinions based on the truth as a responsible citizen of the EU. There has to be a long term defense mechanism against these manipulations as they have played a huge role in a lot of elections and even in wars.

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