Teaching Truth in the Age of Deepfakes
Global Media and Information Literacy Week kicks off with artificial intelligence at center stage, and Addie J. Davis traces how the same technology turbocharging “fake-everything” could also power the fixes. The piece maps this year’s UNESCO focus—Cartagena’s feature conference and national observances from the MENA region to the US—and then gets practical: educators and newsroom trainers are racing to teach verification, data literacy, and critical consumption while AI systems speed up deception with deepfakes, synthetic voices, and algorithmic amplification. Experts describe a two-track reality. On one track, AI helps trace the origin of viral claims, spot coordinated inauthentic behavior, and detect manipulated media. On the other, it reproduces bias, fuels harassment—especially of women—and rewards the most divisive content.
Give the gift of hope
We practice what we preach:
accurate, fearless journalism. But we can't do it alone.
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
Join us.
Support The Media Line. Save democracy.
Policy isn’t keeping pace. In much of the Middle East and North Africa, initiatives proliferate but often rely on outside partnerships rather than national strategies; gaps in Arabic-language moderation and access to trustworthy local news make things harder. In the US, media literacy is mostly grassroots and fragmented by state lines, with confusion over what the term even means. Trainers say the fix starts with simple habits—source, purpose, money trail—paired with data literacy in schools, newsroom adoption of AI verification tools, campaigns in local dialects, and tech platforms that build for linguistic inclusivity.
The article doesn’t sugarcoat the timeline: education moves slowly, AI moves fast, and humans—not just algorithms—drive the spread of falsehoods by sharing before checking. Still, programs under UNESCO’s umbrella and region-by-region experiments suggest a practical path forward: teach the process once, apply it to every new tool. For case studies, on-the-ground projects, and what comes next, read Addie J. Davis’ full story.
