We found that the over-65 generations, accustomed to a different kind of information and a different kind of fact-checking by journalists and news outlets, have been used to believing what they read without questioning the source and the truthfulness of the news too much, especially if accompanied by photos or videos. Over-65s who use social media therefore often find themselves unwittingly spreading fake news. The Freedom project aimed precisely to break this cycle, helping these people recognize false or manipulated news and to stop—or at least limit—its dissemination. Our goal was to familiarize them with all the phenomena of disinformation, explaining what they are, how they work, and providing tools to combat them.
We wrote this project with the great challenges of this decade in mind: artificial intelligence and the fight against its malicious use. In an era like this, in which even digital natives struggle to find their bearings, we wanted to create simple and intuitive tools to help older people as well navigate deepfakes, new technologies, and disinformation on social media. In fact, we identified two main needs: on the one hand, the desire to approach social media and stay up to date; on the other, the fear of falling victim to fake news, deepfakes, and scams of various kinds. Fake news is not only a journalistic problem; it has real repercussions on public health, trust in institutions, and democratic processes. We have witnessed how false reports about vaccines led to distrust of them and to consequent outbreaks. False news about migrants led to an increase in racist sentiments, and fake news about the LGBT+ community fueled LGBT+phobic hate. Our project stems from the need to educate one of the most vulnerable segments of the population in fact-checking and in recognizing false news, in order to limit its spread.