
In his traditional New Year’s address to diplomats at the Vatican, Pope Francis warned of the dangers of misinformation and its spread via social media and artificial intelligence, cautioning it could be “misused to manipulate minds.”
The Pope also lamented the increased polarization in society, “aggravated by the continuous creation and spread of fake news, which not only distorts facts but also perceptions.”
“This phenomenon generates false images of reality, a climate of suspicion that foments hate, undermines people’s sense of security, and compromises civil coexistence and the stability of entire nations,” the 88-year-old pontiff said.
His comments come after tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook, announced it was ending its third party fact checking program in the United States and adopting a crowd-sourced model to police disinformation similar to the system being used by Elon Musk owned X.
Pope Francis, who has been head of the Catholic Church since 2013, emphasized the need for media literacy education to promote critical thinking.
The cocktail of misinformation, social media, and the lack of critical thinking has led to the spread of false information that can damage people, lives, and even countries. It is something that greatly concerns Pope Francis and an issue that we should be more aware of, as the public and private sectors will need to cooperate closely if such misinformation and disinformation is going to be countered.
As a country that has seen how manipulating information and truth can be used to great effect by politicians and their troll farms, we must understand the urgency of the call of the Pope for nations to improve media literacy education and promote critical thinking among their people.
Those are the best ways we can face the problems of misinformation and disinformation, especially if the social media companies that should be the guardians of the content being shared on their highly effective platforms refuse to work with fact checking partners as a way of addressing this serious issue.*