Environmental topics are often targeted by organized disinformation campaigns, from climate denial to attacks on local civic initiatives. As Filip Dobranić from Danes je nov dan sees it, institutions will try to dominate the narrative when it comes to many social issues, not just the climate. 

Social technologies (democracy as an example of one) are data processing technologies. That doesn’t necessarily mean manipulation or that it’s impossible to have a conversation with everyone, but the idea is that as many people as possible get at least some bit of information. To be able to do that, data has to be heavily processed so that it can be transferred to a mass amount of people. 

Manipulation tactics change through time. Information today is faster, more accessible, and the quality check for information hasn’t followed the trend of information production. 

There are different ways disinformation is produced and false images have existed for a long time, but with the help of generative AI, this has become cheaper and faster. Astroturfing, “fake grass” root movements with inauthentic coordinated bot behaviours popping up all over social media, generative AI false images and AI generated voice cloning; the list goes on. The world of fakeness is vast and not exclusive to generative AI.

But, why do we all fall for disinformation? 

The lie is not a technological problem, it’s a societal problem. Today, all of the tactics are trying to prey on your wide range of emotions, from positive, to so-called disasters porn (of people in solidarity) to things that reproduce anger, outrage. The contemporary power of this comes from the “reaction economy”. Users of social networks and regular office software are being trained to react to things. Not read, reflex, take home, pray, think but to react. 

The way we express our intelligence depends on context. We need to shift from a reaction economy back to real people. Everyone is smarter if we are in a group – we don’t need a majority of small people, we just need conversation. 

To help you spot AI production on the internet, Danes je nov dan created Razkrinkaj.ai, a website to help you learn how to distinguish AI from real images. A website to help you learn, that is already outdated, because AI technology moves faster. 

From conversations to online communities, we need to foster an environment where people are comfortable coming up to you when they’ve made a mistake. That can help us navigate the internet – creating environemnts that allow making mistakes.

The solution is not to keep checking whether an image is AI or not, but to understand which platforms and information you can trust based on other indicators. Start using journalist standards – find sources, check if they’re true. It doesn’t matter if it is AI produced, what matters is if it’s true. You can still trust information online, but beware what and who you trust and reevaluate why you trust them. 

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Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.