'Cognitive Erosion' Has Become A New Target Of Disinformation Expert

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) Paolo Cesarini, Chair of the Executive Board of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

According to the expert, the ultimate goal of such attacks is not persuasion but to push audiences into a state of apathy in which they stop believing in any facts or sources of information.

"Classic disinformation operations, like classic influence operations, had been known to be designed to persuade people. More and more, especially after AI took a huge role in the production and distribution of information online, you see that the strategy is no longer persuasion or motivation. Now it is cognitive erosion," the expert said.

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In his opinion, this leads to disengagement, cynicism, and the defiance of any form of state authority or government institutions.

Cesarini also outlined EDMO's three-layer methodology for countering these threats:

• The first layer involves targeted monitoring of fake news, artificially generated content, and individual disinformation "spikes" in the media.
• The second layer involves analyzing deeper propaganda narratives, including Russian claims about "corrupt" Ukraine.
• The third layer involves identifying the organizers and coordinators of networks operating across different countries by combining fact-checking with open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools.

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