Artificial intelligence and the new era of digital misinformation
Artificial intelligence is changing the way information flows across the internet, and not always for the better.
In recent years, the volume of AI-generated fake content has grown at an alarming rate on social media and even on traditional news outlets. A study by researchers at Cornell University, published in 2024, showed that over the course of a year, AI-generated misinformation increased by 57.3% on mainstream websites and a staggering 474% on sites dedicated exclusively to spreading false content.
Videos of wars that never happened, manipulated images of political leaders, synthetic audio that mimics real voices — all of it hits your feed looking just like any other legitimate news story. 😬
And the worst part: a lot of people believe it, share it, and defend it even after being told it is fake.
This scenario puts anyone who is online at risk, regardless of education level, profession, or beliefs.
But there is one group that deserves special attention in this conversation: Christian communities.
For reasons ranging from deep trust in religious authority figures to the consumption of emotional and political content without fact-checking, Christians have proven to be particularly vulnerable to digital misinformation. Chris Turner, a journalist at the Baptist and Reflector, recently brought this reflection to light by recalling lessons from his journalism professor, William D. Downs Jr., who spent 41 years leading the communications and journalism department at Ouachita Baptist University.
The good news is that faith itself offers a response to this problem, and it is more than two thousand years old.
In this article, we will break down how the flood of AI-driven fake news is spreading, why it is so hard to resist, and what a group of ancient believers can teach us about discernment in the digital world. 👇
Lessons from a journalism professor that never got old
Before diving into the world of AI and misinformation, it is worth revisiting some journalism principles that remain extremely relevant today. Professor Downs, who also served as a military instructor in the early 1950s, was known for treating his journalism students with the same strict discipline of a drill sergeant. He repeated phrases that stuck in the memory of every student who passed through his classes.
One of them was particularly memorable: If your mother says she loves you, get three sources to confirm it. Another: Trust nobody and assume nothing. The core message was simple and powerful — serious journalists pursue facts, verify those facts, and verify them again, no matter where the information came from.
But there was one saying that has become even more relevant in today’s world shaped by artificial intelligence: Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see. Turner, reflecting on today’s landscape, suggests a necessary update to that maxim: today, we probably should not believe anything we hear or anything we see, at least not without verifying it first.
That advice, which might have sounded like paranoia 20 years ago, is now one of the most sensible habits any information consumer can adopt. The ability of AI to generate audiovisual content indistinguishable from reality has made verification not a luxury but a basic necessity for informational survival. 📰
How AI became a misinformation factory
For a long time, creating a convincing fake video required expensive equipment, time, and specialized professionals. Today, anyone with a smartphone and access to a few free tools can generate a deepfake in minutes. This is the new reality of digital misinformation, and it is expanding at a pace most people still do not truly grasp. Generative artificial intelligence, the kind that creates text, images, video, and audio from simple prompts, has torn down every technical barrier that once prevented the mass production of deceptive content.
A concrete and recent example that illustrates this problem is the wave of AI-generated fake videos related to the conflict involving Iran. Videos showing a supposed Iranian counterattack against Tel Aviv and against the Burj Khalifa in Dubai — the tallest building in the world — circulated widely on the X platform, reaching millions of viewers. The videos were entirely fabricated by artificial intelligence. And perhaps most troubling of all: when BBC journalists asked the chatbot Grok to verify the authenticity of these images, the chatbot itself incorrectly insisted the material was real.
The impact on social media is direct and devastating. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and WhatsApp are the primary distribution channels for this fake news, and the algorithms behind these platforms have a dangerous characteristic: they prioritize content that generates the most engagement. Emotional, shocking, or polarizing content tends to perform far better than a balanced, verified news story. This creates a vicious cycle where a well-produced lie reaches far more people than a simple truth. People naturally do not seek balance when forming their opinions — they consume sources that reinforce what they already think, and algorithms feed exactly that tendency.
Ironically, both Facebook and X have fact-checking tools designed to combat fake news. But many users simply dismiss the fact-checks themselves as false, especially when they contradict their pre-existing beliefs. Misinformation has created an environment where even the correction is seen as a threat. 😓
When knowing it is fake makes no difference
Perhaps the most alarming finding in this discussion comes from research conducted by communication psychologists at University College London. The study revealed that participants who watched deepfake videos continued to be influenced by the content even after being told the videos were fabricated. In other words, people knew they were looking at something fake and still chose to believe it.
This phenomenon is directly related to what researchers call confirmation bias — the human tendency to give more weight to information that confirms what we already believe. When false content aligns with our convictions, rejecting it requires a cognitive effort that many people simply are not willing to make, especially in an environment of infinite scrolling where everything competes for our attention in fractions of a second.
To round out this picture, a global study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour brought another unsettling discovery: people with strong ideological views tend to be more confident in their ability to identify misinformation than they actually are. In other words, those who believe they are most protected against lies are often the ones most vulnerable to them. This false sense of security is one of the greatest allies of AI-driven misinformation. 🤔
Why Christian communities are at the center of this vulnerability
Talking about the vulnerability of religious groups to misinformation is not a criticism of faith — quite the opposite. It is an honest analysis of social and psychological dynamics that affect any tight-knit group with strong internal bonds of trust. And in the case of Christianity, especially within evangelical and Pentecostal communities in Brazil, these dynamics create a fertile environment for fake news to spread quickly and without resistance. The trust placed in pastors, leaders, and religious authority figures means that information shared within these circles is received with far less skepticism than it deserves.
Chris Turner highlights in his writing that Christians are especially vulnerable when a person in whom they place a high degree of trust spreads, intentionally or not, false information. In those cases, the tendency is to believe and share without questioning, including emotionally charged fabricated stories that contain little truth or questionable theology. On top of that, emotionally loaded political content gets shared without any fact-checking.
Church WhatsApp groups, pastors’ Instagram profiles, YouTube channels blending religious and political content — all of these spaces have unintentionally become amplifiers of false content. When a religious leader shares something without verification, the reach of that information within the community is immediate and deep. And the content that circulates most in these environments tends to mix religious themes with political narratives, prophecies, conspiracy theories, and warnings about persecution of the Christian faith — exactly the kind of material that artificial intelligence can produce on an industrial scale with a completely legitimate appearance.
Turner’s writing is blunt in pointing out that, far too often, Christians end up becoming the definition of gullibility. He turns to two verses from Proverbs to illustrate the point. Proverbs 15:14 says that the discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly. And Proverbs 14:15 adds that the simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps.
There is also the emotional factor. Content that speaks to threats against the family, religion, or moral values triggers a heightened emotional state that reduces critical thinking. When someone is angry, afraid, or outraged, the brain prioritizes reaction over analysis. That is not weakness — it is human biology. But misinformation producers know this and exploit that gap with surgical precision, especially in communities where these topics carry enormous cultural and spiritual weight.
Turner goes further and makes a pointed statement: sharing unverified information is a modern form of bearing false witness. When a Christian spreads something they have not checked, they are potentially damaging their own witness before the world. 🤔
The Bereans and the art of verifying before believing
In the Book of Acts, chapter 17, there is a short but powerful account of a group called the Bereans. When the apostle Paul arrived in the city of Berea preaching about Jesus, the reaction of these people was different from what he usually encountered. Instead of accepting everything at face value or rejecting it out of sheer prejudice, the Bereans listened carefully and then went to check the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. The biblical text describes them as more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, precisely because of this habit of investigating before drawing conclusions.
This behavior, recorded more than two thousand years ago, is a perfect description of what we now call fact-checking. The Bereans were not suspicious or rude. They simply understood that receiving information, even from a source as respected as the apostle Paul himself, was not the same as confirming it. This principle is entirely compatible with genuine faith — in fact, it assumes that truth can withstand scrutiny. If something is true, investigating will only confirm it. If it is false, it is better to know before sharing it around.
As Turner puts it well: the Bereans remind us that faithfulness is not gullibility. They listened with enthusiasm but verified with care. And that balance between openness and discernment is exactly what Christian communities need to reclaim in the digital age.
What it means to be a Berean in the digital world
Applying the Berean mindset in the online environment starts with something seemingly simple but surprisingly difficult: the discipline of pausing before sharing something that triggers outrage or fear. Social media rewards speed and reaction, but discernment demands a pause.
Turner suggests a fundamental question that anyone should ask before hitting the share button: Do I know this is true, or does it simply confirm what I already believe?
Beyond that guiding question, the Berean approach in today’s context includes:
- Checking multiple sources to confirm the facts before accepting any information as true.
- Recognizing emotional manipulation and asking yourself: is this informing me objectively, or is it inflaming me emotionally?
- Prioritizing biblical wisdom over speculative information. Excessive news consumption, especially hours spent watching a single source or consuming algorithm-driven content, can distort perspective and fuel anxiety.
- Remembering that truthfulness is a Christian witness. Sharing misinformation damages the testimony of anyone who calls themselves a Christian, and spreading unverified claims is, in practical terms, a modern version of bearing false witness.
This simple yet powerful reasoning is exactly what is missing from much of the information consumption within Christian communities today. ✅
Practical tools to avoid falling for fake news
Identifying fake news has gotten harder with the arrival of generative AI, but it is still possible with a few simple daily habits. The first step is to slow down. Most false content depends on an immediate reaction, on sharing by impulse before any reflection takes place. When you feel that urgent need to pass something along because it seems too important or too shocking, that is exactly the moment to stop and take a breath. Urgency is one of the hallmarks of misinformation — it does not want you to think, it wants you to react.
After slowing down, check the source. Who published this content first? Is there an identifiable source? Does the outlet that shared it have a verifiable track record? Images and videos can be run through reverse search tools like Google Images or TinEye, which show where that image first appeared on the internet. Often, a photo presented as current is actually years old or from a completely different context. This kind of verification takes less than two minutes and can keep you from spreading wrong information to your entire network of contacts.
Finally, it is worth knowing the main fact-checking organizations available in the U.S. and around the world. Snopes, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and the AP Fact Check are widely recognized and reliable references. In Brazil, Aos Fatos, Agência Lupa, Comprova, and E-Farsas are solid national resources. Many of these platforms already integrate artificial intelligence to speed up fact-checking, which is great news in a world where the volume of suspicious content only keeps growing. Using these tools is not a sign of excessive distrust — it is just good digital sense. 💡
The misinformation tsunami and the call to discernment
Turner describes the current landscape as a growing tsunami of AI-fabricated news and information that is destabilizing culture, bombarding the senses, disorienting perspectives, and attacking the truth. That metaphor is not an exaggeration when you look at the numbers and the speed at which technology is evolving.
The Christian faith has always valued the pursuit of truth. In a world where artificial intelligence can create perfect lies in seconds, that pursuit needs to include fact-checking as a daily practice.
The challenge of misinformation is not going away. As AI tools advance, false content will become increasingly sophisticated and harder to identify with the naked eye. But the answer to this does not lie in technology alone — it also lies in the posture each person takes toward the information they consume and share. Christian communities have a real opportunity to lead by example on this issue, drawing on values like honesty, responsibility, and commitment to the truth that are at the heart of the faith and applying those values in the digital space with the same seriousness they apply in other areas of life.
As Turner observes, we may not need three sources when our mothers say they love us, but we certainly need to pause and consider whether we can truly believe what we see and hear before embracing it as truth.
At the end of the day, the Berean principle is a call to active discernment. It is not about doubting everything or trusting no one — it is about understanding that the truth deserves to be investigated, not just received. And in a world where artificial intelligence is redrawing the boundaries between what is real and what is fabricated, that mindset can make all the difference. 🙏
