Critical Thinking in the Age of Deepfakes
Recently, the dominant question in discourse around media and other content has been how AI can be effectively integrated into the planning, preparation, and creation of content. However, there is another side to this question that receives far less attention: how can content consumers identify deliberately misleading materials — now produced primarily with the help of AI — and how can they avoid unwittingly participating in their spread?
Together with communications professionals from the Worldcom PR Group network, we set out to find answers to these questions. At this year’s global conference in Paris, we held a roundtable discussion involving PR professionals under the age of 30, and as a backdrop to the conversation, we conducted an international online survey. Below, I present the key findings of that research.
Content Consumption Platforms
Young people primarily get their news and professional information from various social media platforms and digital media in general, with traditional media (TV, radio, or print) trailing well behind in mentions. The full list is led — by a wide margin — by the Instagram–TikTok–YouTube trio, followed by online news portals. Traditional media only narrowly edged out LinkedIn; and podcasts as well as newsletter-based news sources (such as Substack) are close on their heels. For us as PR professionals, this means that social media platforms of various kinds, along with podcasts and newsletters, must form an inseparable part of the communications mix in any outreach targeting younger audiences.
Fact-Checking
Now come the more interesting findings. The verification and authentication of information gathered from various platforms shows some notable gaps. Only a minority of respondents said they always attempt to verify the information they encounter from some source. There were also some — fortunately not too many — who admitted they never check anything at all. Bear in mind: these are communications professionals.
In this context, it is worth looking at fact-checking patterns. The trend is fairly clear. The majority either try to verify a piece of news through other sources, or attempt to trace and verify the original or primary source of the story. It is often noted that members of Gen Z communicate in an impersonal way, dislike direct person-to-person information exchange, and find it far easier to seek advice anonymously. Yet the findings somewhat contradict this: a visible — if admittedly minority — share of respondents said they turn to colleagues or peers when fact-checking. Every other method (such as visiting dedicated fact-checking websites) lags far behind.
Who Can Be Trusted?
And there is another interesting contradiction in the results. We saw that traditional media does not rank highly as a primary news source for young people. Yet when it comes to fact-checking or verifying the credibility of data and information, journalists and established media outlets top the trust rankings by a wide margin. Experts and various online communities (such as Reddit or Facebook groups) follow at a considerable distance. So while young people generally do not consume traditional media, we can safely say: when in doubt or in need, they still “retreat” to it.
Alarming Disinformation
When it comes to fake news and disinformation spreading online — much of it now AI-generated — the responses from young professionals are thought-provoking. The vast majority are concerned to some degree. What’s more, nearly half of respondents have already experienced sharing content that later turned out to contain false information — unintentionally. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that the majority do not feel confident in their ability to reliably identify AI-generated content. A related detail worth noting: AI-written texts and articles are considered the hardest to detect, followed by deepfake videos. The AI-generated images that have been flooding several social platforms in a near-deluge lately come in only third.
Creation vs. Verification
The responses from young professionals point to an important contradiction. Companies are investing enormous effort in training their staff on the use of AI — prompting, copywriting, image generation, process design, and so on. At the same time, far less emphasis is placed on supporting the recipient side: the deliberate cultivation and reinforcement of critical content consumption habits. If there were just one takeaway to hold onto from this research, it would surely be this: as PR professionals, we should invest more in developing the critical thinking skills of our colleagues — and even our clients — and in supporting conscious, discerning online content consumption. It seems clear that there is real demand for education, advisory services, and training in this direction.
About the Respondents
The survey was completed primarily by PR professionals aged 22 to 29, with over 150 participants from 20 countries (mainly from North and South America, Europe, and Australia, with a few countries from the Far East also represented). The majority have between one and five years of professional experience; the overwhelming majority work at communications agencies. The survey was conducted by Worldcom PR Group members in May 2026.
