When AI also becomes a disinformation ally
Disinformation is a major global challenge, influencing how people understand events, make decisions and engage in democratic life. In Europe, disinformation is regarded as a security and societal threat(opens in new window), as evidenced during the COVID 19 pandemic with false claims fuelling vaccine hesitancy. According to Massimo Magaldi, coordinator of the EU-funded TITAN(opens in new window) project: “Disinformation destabilises democratic debate and intensifies social tensions, highlighting the need for stronger critical thinking and media literacy.” TITAN focused on building long-term disinformation resilience through an AI powered coaching platform, with users engaging through reflective dialogue, learning materials and collaborative features.
The critical-thinking-empowerment ecosystem
Citizens, disinformation specialists, educators, facilitators, students, NGO staff, migrants and journalists all participated in TITAN through living labs and pilots across Europe. Over 322 people took part in co-creation sessions and over 347 users were surveyed for needs analysis, with pilot testing in three use cases: higher education in Flanders, NGOs in south-eastern/central Europe, and migrants and students in Italy. “User feedback was vital for a solution that was not just technically impressive, but usable, trusted, ethically grounded and relevant,” adds Magaldi. Two main pilots – one qualitative and focused on user experience, the other more quantitative, using surveys and system data to measure actual usage – resulted in what Magaldi calls TITAN’s ‘critical-thinking-empowerment ecosystem’ delivered by two complementary prototypes. The Individual Edition(opens in new window), for everyday users to navigate information online, is available through lightweight browser extensions and an Android app. It offers access to a coaching companion, using Socratic style dialogue to strengthen media literacy and recognition of disinformation tactics. The Community Edition(opens in new window) is a web application for structured learning environments, such as classrooms, to increase critical thinking and media literacy through high engagement and prolonged use. Users collaborate to analyse information, map arguments and discuss evidence. “Our real innovation was less the use of AI, but the integration of Socratic style dialogue(opens in new window) as a coaching method to strengthen critical thinking skills,” explains Magaldi.
A personalised solution
In a simple scenario, users upload suspicious links or posts for the AI to analyse for disinformation tactics, such as polarisation or pseudoscience. The algorithm was trained on pre-existing datasets, supplemented with data from TITAN’s living labs, pilots, manually crafted dialogues and human-annotated articles. Instead of declaring content true or false, a chatbot, powered by large language models, starts a dialogue to help users recognise disinformation signals by asking questions such as: What is the source? In the Community Edition, this can trigger learning modules. “The Community Edition integrates users’ dialogue history to adapt conversational styles and learning pathways. Likewise, the coaching chatbot modulates dialogue based on disinformation signals detected in content. So, the system tailors to both the user and the content,” Magaldi notes.
From useful solution to active engagement
The aim is to further deploy the tool across structured educational environments with prior evidence of success, while developing easier-to-access formats, such as apps, to improve engagement and retention. Magaldi is particularly proud of the ‘Critically Yours’(opens in new window) Design Challenge where youth were invited to design interactive assets to build media literacy and critical thinking, using the TITAN approach. One winning concept, ‘Filtered Realities’, allows users to compare manipulated and accurate versions of the same news story, revealing how framing and emotional triggers distort perception. “Young people are not just passive information consumers, but creative partners in designing solutions, capturing the project’s spirit of combining technology, creativity and collaborative empowerment,” says Magaldi.
