Digital Innovation Summit 2024: Media literacy, essential to have correctly informed citizens (experts)

"I think no one expects the answer from me that technology is a bad thing, and we do not hate technology, of course. Information is a tool, it is a weapon created by ourselves. So this weapon can be in good hands and can be in the wrong hands. The context creates this tool and if it is in the wrong hands they poison it. The only key thing we have truly reached to is that the approaches to the use of technology, in general, are still outdated. We further believe that technology is a novelty, which is not true. There is technology today and there was technology yesterday. The AI [Artificial Intelligence] still thinks under our control, but we don't know how long and for what period we will become unable to control it," emphasized Giorgi Iashvili, co-founder and cyber security consultant at Cyber Trust, in his intervention in the panel moderated by Claudia Nicolae, the director general of the National News Agency AGERPRES.

For her part, Flavia Durach, lecturer at the College of Communication and Public Relations, within the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest (SNSPA), mentioned that media literacy is essential to have correct information, but this process "takes time to have positive results."

"The good news is that media literacy is one of the important pillars, and this is a conclusion that is based on research. The effectiveness of media literacy interventions has been tested repeatedly with satisfactory results. Media literacy, however, takes time to have positive results. It is one of the structural interventions that do not solve the immediate problems. For example, the use of Deepfakes in 2024, in which there is a record number of elections around the globe. So I would say that media literacy is essential to equip citizens with accurate and secure information. It can and should be applied together with other measures and policies that will bring immediate results to our contemporary problems related to not only content, but also related to connectivity. We live in an era of networks, which are equipped with technological means for increasing political and social influence, in the broader sense of the political term. This connectivity is currently organized by geopolitical, state or non-state actors. The digital domain has become one of the main places for geopolitical competition, and the problem is even more complicated when the digital space is organized and dominated by private businesses," said Durach.

The National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics - ICI Bucharest is organizing, from April 16 to 18, at the Palace of the Parliament, the Digital Innovation Summit Bucharest (DISB) event, during which the 7th edition of the Forum on Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP Forum), as well as the 3rd edition of the International Conference on Cyber Diplomacy (ICCD).

According to the organizers, CIP Forum focuses on the integration of blockchain to combat cyber attacks, the launch of the NFT Museum of ICI Bucharest and panels dedicated to the role of women in innovation and society.

The event will include panels and workshops, TechPulse Hackathon, B2B meetings, international inter-ministerial dialogues and demonstrations of state-of-the-art products.

(Fluierul)