Internet-based “fake news” is fomenting prejudice and hatred, Pope Francis said on Tuesday, warning our culture “has lost its sense of truth and bends the facts to suit particular interests”.
He issued the stark warning in a letter to young people around the world following last October’s youth-themed bishops’ synod.
“There are huge economic interests operating in the digital world, capable of exercising forms of control as subtle as they are invasive, creating mechanisms for the manipulation of consciences and of the democratic process,” the pope wrote.
Social networks encourage contact between people who already think alike, precluding them from debate, he said.
