A Sociopolitical Approach to Disinformation and AI: Concerns, Responses and Challenges

International organizations classify disinformation as one of the main threats to democracy and institutions for more than a decade. Digital technologies reinvent and profoundly transform modern lifestyles, citizens’ and business environments. AI is bringing a new disruption in the way we access knowledge and create, spread and understand information. It can also blur the lines between real information and manipulated information with the emergence of ‘Fake News’, automatic networks’ cross referencing, and ‘Deep Fakes’. AI systems enhance the potential for creating realistic fake content and targeted disinformation campaigns. Disinformation goes beyond simple rumors to deliberately deceive and distort evidence-based information through fabricated data. European institutions have also recently focused on the identification of disinformation linked to FIMI: Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference. The article identifies trends and concerns related to disinformation and AI. It explores the perception of disinformation, its impacts, and responses including the EU AI Act and online Platforms’ policies. It provides a first analytical approach to the topic based on the current debates by researchers, the first findings of our 2024 surveys, interviews and the analysis of hundreds of online fake news items. It attempts to understand how citizens and stakeholders perceive disinformation and identifies possible impacts. It also analyzes the current challenges and constraints, opportunities and limitations to tackle manipulation and interference. The article considers the current processes, and impacts of disinformation (2), the presentation of the main findings of our online survey on the perceptions of disinformation (3), the current EU regulatory responses (4) and the Discussion Points (5). We argue in this article that there is a gigantic change in the way that we access information, but that the responses to disinformation are still at an early stage. The article also demonstrates that there is an increased awareness in European countries about the impacts of disinformation, but also a gap between the ability to identify "fake news" and disinformation, and a limited understanding of the processes, threats, and actors involved in spreading disinformation.