Pope Francis called for truth. The internet answered with deepfakes.
Pope Francis, who died Monday at age 88, was an unlikely chronicler of the world’s reckoning with false information online.
Francis outlined the societal harms of misinformation in 2018, tracing the origin of false news to the Garden of Eden “snake tactics” that led to the original sin.
“There is no such thing as harmless disinformation; on the contrary, trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences,” he wrote Jan. 24, 2018, for World Communications Day. “Even a seemingly slight distortion of the truth can have dangerous effects.”
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors