Away at Doubt and Debate: doubt as an antidote to disinformation

Questions about Gaza, Trump, the wars that mark our time, artificial intelligence and the increasingly blurred boundaries between human and digital. From the stage of the San Babila Theatre in Milan came no easy answers, but the certainty that questioning is already an act of freedom. This is how 'Doubt and Debate' began, an international tech-media literacy project promoted by the Observatory for Independent Thinking, and christened yesterday in front of over 500 high school students.

In a video link-up, three protagonists of the world of information - Joe Kahn, editor of the New York Times, Mark Thompson, CEO of CNN, and Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp - talked to the young people, answering their questions on how the media tell the story of conflict, politics and polarised society. A direct, unfiltered discussion that introduced the central theme of the initiative: learning to find one's way in an information ecosystem dominated by algorithms and in which critical thinking must increasingly be recognised as the compass capable of guiding reasoning and choices, particularly by the youngest, who are exposed to social networks, algorithms and the obscure aspects of networks and new technologies.

Explaining the aim of the project - after the video endorsement of the editors and representatives of the national and international media partners participating in the initiative - was Andrea Ceccherini, president of the Observatory: 'With Doubt and Debate we want to undermine the certainties that polarise, the convictions that separate and radicalise in order to open the way to doubt and confrontation, two necessary exercises in a world that, perhaps also for this reason, seems to be increasingly on fire.

The platform will offer schools and students multimedia lessons and exclusive content created through partnerships with leading newspapers: from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, from the Washington Post to Il Sole 24 Ore, Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica, La Stampa, El País and other major European newspapers.

Next to Ceccherini, on stage, Pietro Labriola, CEO of Tim, main sponsor of the initiative: "We can build the fastest networks in Europe, but without aware people, there will be no progress. Technology is a bridge, we need to know how to walk on it," he recalled. With the project, Tim is also launching the #RompiLaBolla campaign, which invites young people to "put their face on it" and tell what it means for them to take control of the digital world. "Today, the window on the world passes through a feed where everything ends up looking like us, but the good news is that 80% of young people are asking to understand how algorithms work. It is not distrust of technology," concluded Labriola, "but the desire to govern it.