In recent years, communication has faced critical turning points. Disinformation has taken on new and dangerous dimensions in the digital age. Fake news and deepfakes have gone from being technological curiosities to becoming manipulation tools that affect society, politics, and corporate reputation—threatening our way of life.
The spread of false information is not a new phenomenon, but the speed at which it travels and the sophistication of the tools used to create it have reached alarming levels.
According to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), fake news spreads six times faster than real news on social media. And with the rise of generative artificial intelligence, the ability to fake videos, audio, and images has severely challenged the credibility of digital information.
Deepfakes—AI-manipulated videos designed to imitate real people—represent one of today’s most serious threats. From fake videos of political leaders to cloned audio recordings of corporate executives, this technology has proven capable of influencing political and economic decisions.
A high-profile case occurred in 2023, when a deepfake video of President Volodymyr Zelensky went viral, falsely showing him ordering Ukrainian troops to surrender to Russia. Although quickly debunked, the disinformation affected public morale and exposed the vulnerability of communication in times of crisis.
In the corporate world, deepfakes have also been used to commit fraud. In 2022, a group of cybercriminals used voice cloning technology to impersonate a CEO and defraud a company in Asia of more than $35 million through a fake transfer.
In 2023, a major tech company suffered a coordinated social media attack that spread false claims about a cybersecurity breach, leading to an 8% drop in its stock value in a single day.
A 2024 report from the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford revealed that while users still trust traditional media more for news, 64% of people primarily get their information from social media, increasing their exposure to manipulated content.
WhatsApp and Telegram have been especially problematic, as their end-to-end encryption makes it difficult to trace the origin of false information.
For companies, fake news and deepfakes are not just reputational threats—they are financial risks. According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, 69% of consumers say they would stop buying from a company if they found out it was involved in a scandal—even one based on false information.
The digital era has opened a window of opportunity for communication, but it has also multiplied the risks of disinformation and manipulation.
Fake news and deepfakes have shown that truth is no longer enough—it must be protected, verified, and communicated responsibly.