Digitization is seen as both a curse and a panacea: on the one hand, particularly young people surf incredibly confidently on the Internet and with new forms of communication and are often referred to as digital natives. Countries like Estonia, for example, show us that elections, public administration and most everyday things can be done online and digitally. In Germany, the political maxim has been set to implement digitization in all areas as quickly as possible, especially in the economy, and to catch up. On the other hand, digitization also brings with it many problems and dangers, both for individuals and for democracy as a whole. Fake news, election manipulation, and leaving people behind who do not feel comfortable with digital technologies are particularly worth mentioning here. At the latest since the Brexit referendum and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, it is well known that fake news on the Internet, especially on social media, had a considerable influence on the outcome of the referendum and the election. Specifically, Russia is often accused of conducting state-directed disinformation campaigns to destabilize Western democracies. In fact, however, this phenomenon is not new: disinformation and propaganda have always played an important role in politics and were at their peak during the Cold War, including in the Soviet Union. What is new is the direct access provided to citizens in Western countries via the Internet, without the fact-checking and filtering by journalists. In Georgia, however, this phenomenon has been known since at least 2008, when Russia accompanied its invasion of that country with a broad disinformation campaign. At the same time, the tone of our social communication on the Internet is getting harsher. Bullying, hate speech and trolling are widespread on social media, and the inhibition threshold for this has fallen sharply in recent years. But what does this do with our society? A democracy is discourse-based and does not function without arguments over issues and opinions, but always in a civilized manner. If this is lost, how do we shape our discourse and find compromises? There is no way around digitization in the future. However, we must not see it as the solution to all our problems, but must accompany its implementation with care. Young people will have a special role to play here because of their familiarity with the media. We wanted to work out the opportunities and risks of digitization, especially at the European level, in a project with young adults from Germany, Poland and Bulgaria. The three countries experience very different approaches and debates around the topic of digitization, ranging from a strong confrontation with fake news in Poland to a certain ignorance in Germany. It was precisely these different perspectives that were important to us in our overall consideration of the topic. Young adults very rarely deal with digitization, but when they do, it is mainly in the context of formal education. There, however, they usually only deal with it in a fragmented way. Many topics, cross-references, backgrounds and options for action come up short. Therefore, there was a need to search for complementary approaches in dealing with the topic. The goal was thus to overcome the black-and-white discourse and to enable the participants to take a differentiated view and to recognize and question the stereotyped and generalized views. In this way, they can act as multipliers of a reflected social discourse. This is where non-formal education could come in and complement school lessons. Two youth encounters were the focus of the project. The first youth encounter focused on challenges of digitalization, especially fake news and manipulation through social media, the second youth encounter on hate speech, as well as participation possibilities of digitalization for democracy and future visions for a digital European society. This project aimed at fostering the participants’ sensitization for socio-political debates, to promote democratic debate as well as intercultural dialogue by experiencing, getting to know and questioning other views and values. The project was intended to actively strengthen European awareness among the participants by examining a socially relevant topic from the perspective of both a united Europe and individual member states (keyword: change of perspective), while at the same time promoting the participants' intercultural, social and action-oriented skills through the encounter character.