00:00Does social media endanger our democracy?
00:02One thing is certain: radicalization online is dividing societies worldwide.
00:06Many blame social media for this.
00:09People primarily interact with like-minded individuals, and algorithms ensure that...
00:13that we see what corresponds to our opinion.
00:16What's behind it? Find out more at Shift.
00:21Texting with friends, checking out new dance moves,
00:24To briefly gaze longingly at my crush and catch up on some news at the same time.
00:28Many people have been using TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook for a very long time.
00:32But that's only one side of social media.
00:34says this Indian software developer,
00:36who deals intensively with radicalization online.
00:39People need to understand,
00:41that social media is not the same as it was ten years ago.
00:44Today they are a minefield, a battlefield for information warfare.
00:47An information war, also waged with AI, as you will see later.
00:52Everyone is fighting for your attention and your time.
00:55because that brings in advertising revenue.
00:56But reach is only available for things that are loud and entertaining.
01:00Many people had to get used to that.
01:02Politicians often find it difficult to communicate content in a way that...
01:05that they arrive on TikTok and similar platforms.
01:07Many therefore employ experts like Luna Möbius.
01:10She is a social media officer for the German Green Party.
01:13and shows her colleagues what is possible and what is not.
01:16This dryness, I'm standing in front of a lectern and I'm giving my speech.
01:20This objective approach simply doesn't work.
01:22Anger is incredibly effective, fear is incredibly effective, but comedy is also incredibly effective.
01:28And I think that democrats also need to become more populist in their content.
01:33I don't find populism inherently wrong at all,
01:35as long as the facts are somehow not wrong.
01:38Because online, it's not the best arguments that count, but the strongest reactions.
01:43The algorithm rewards content that we like, dislike, or share.
01:47These are primarily simple messages that evoke strong emotions.
01:50Such posts are specifically amplified by the algorithms of many platforms.
01:59and generate even more comments.
02:03Politicians are trying to exploit this digital outrage.
02:08This has become part of the media strategy in the political business.
02:14Luna Möbius considers this fatal.
02:17Anger isn't the only emotion that somehow drives content creation.
02:21but it's actually anger, fear, joy, and a kind of practical value.
02:24So, if I somehow feel like I've learned something, that is.
02:26But what we are currently experiencing is very divisive content.
02:29who deliberately plays on anger and fear.
02:31And less of an effort, I somehow make people laugh.
02:34Or I give them something to take with them, something they've learned.
02:37And that's where we need to go further.
02:38But the operators of the major social media platforms
02:41are not interested in changing their behavior.
02:43For them, the business of creating excitement works too well.
02:48Revenues from digital advertising are expected to reach a certain level by 2025.
02:51expected to be more than one trillion US dollars.
02:54And the big three share more than half of that.
02:58Alphabet, ByteDance and Meta.
03:00And that means the only solution for me is to actually address it politically.
03:03and to write truly firm laws,
03:05where, if these rules are broken, there are severe consequences.
03:07Consequences would only arise if laws for the platforms were uniform worldwide.
03:12But we are still a long way from that.
03:15Instead of uniting us, social media continues to polarize.
03:18Politically as well.
03:19Entire platforms are thus politically biased.
03:21For example, acts by Elon Musk or TikTok.
03:24Right-wing opinions are demonstrably spread more widely there by the algorithm.
03:27Right-wing and conservative content also dominates on Donald Trump's Truth Social.
03:33Furthermore, the platform's AI algorithms often show us topics that
03:36which we have liked in the past.
03:38So that we can scroll on for as long as possible.
03:41But this can also amplify serotypes across our world.
03:44At the same time, people with extreme or rare opinions find
03:47connect with each other more quickly on social media.
03:50As a group, they appear louder there than in the pre-social media era.
03:53And then there are also trolls and AI bots here,
03:56who spread political fake news and disinformation by the thousands.
03:59For example, about the war in Ukraine.
04:02They post conspiracy theories and hate messages.
04:05But what constitutes hate speech?
04:07What constitutes freedom of expression?
04:09There is no consensus on this worldwide.
04:11What you end up seeing is often not neutral.
04:14but filtered, polarized, sometimes also manipulated.
04:17It's no wonder, then, that the tone on social media is becoming harsher.
04:20That people shut themselves off from disturbing opinions.
04:23Studies also show this.
04:24But what happens in some chat groups on Telegram, Signal or WhatsApp is particularly disturbing.
04:30There, even children of extremists are approached in order to politically radicalize them.
04:35We are seeing a strong trend of young men becoming digitally radicalized.
04:38There is a widespread perception that adults approach these children and bring them into the scene.
04:44In reality, however, we tend to see that it is slightly older people who radicalize the younger ones.
04:48So, the 13-year-old then the 11-year-old.
04:50We see that content is being created on social media platforms that is appealing.
04:54After initial contact on social media, recruiters usually invite the children into private chat groups.
05:02For example, on WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.
05:05This way, the conversation remains hidden from prying eyes.
05:08Miro and his colleagues provided us with screenshots from such groups, whose names we are deliberately not mentioning here.
05:15For example, a group that encourages its members to resort to violence.
05:20One day, the group discusses completely normal school topics.
05:23Shared with other documents such as Killguide or Terrorguide.
05:27Some of the members in the chat are said to be only 12 years old.
05:31Groups like these are being uncovered worldwide.
05:33There, a sense of community is formed, and these children are given a certain purpose.
05:39a certain motivation for why one actually lives, a purpose in life.
05:43And that's what makes these groups so dangerous.
05:45Such groups are linked to terrorist attacks and hate crimes against minorities.
05:51In the summer of 2025, police in the Czech Republic and Austria arrested five teenagers.
05:56They had tried to set fire to a synagogue.
05:59They had become radicalized on social media.
06:01Extremists are trying to recruit children not only there.
06:05For very young boys, the central place where such things take place is probably through gaming worlds.
06:09One platform that we should definitely consider is Roblox.
06:12Roblox is a very popular game among children.
06:15But it also has a dangerous side.
06:17Many of the rooms there look cute.
06:19But some also recreate terrorist attacks or mass shootings.
06:23That male teenagers become radicalized relatively often,
06:27But it is also related to other problems in society.
06:29We are in the post-pandemic era.
06:32There are many crises affecting this young generation.
06:35We see a very strong problem with loneliness.
06:37This means that people are looking for new communities that simply no longer exist in the same way.
06:40We also have a crisis of masculinity, which unfortunately leads these people into these far-right worlds.
06:45He believes that the frustration over these crises makes Jung more susceptible to hypermasculine rhetoric.
06:50Exploiting their insecurities. Child's play for radical groups.
06:57But classic fake news and propaganda can also radicalize social media users.
07:02How do we get away from this?
07:04An experimental AI tool by Sairaj Balaji could help.
07:08You know, the Indian student and software developer from the beginning.
07:11Online radicalization is a problem that affects all sides of the political spectrum.
07:16We don't want people who kill other people.
07:21Sairaj Balaji is 20 and studies computer science in Chennai, India.
07:26He developed PrismX.
07:28The tool is designed to identify radicalized users online.
07:31Once this has happened, an AI chatboard should contact such users and deradicalize them.
07:36This is the PrismX dashboard. I'll simply enter the keyword here, FGC9, a code word used to describe 3D-printed weapons.
07:45Then I click on Run and Scan.
07:48Using AI language models, PrismX can search entire social media networks for radical content.
07:55It can assess the radical nature of accounts, posts, and comments and generate a detailed report.
08:02Currently, PrismX is only running as a test version.
08:06We currently have twelve marked users. The bot can then communicate with them.
08:11Currently, we are only communicating with dummy accounts. There are no real people behind them.
08:18The bot attempts to gain the user's trust in order to dissuade him from his radical beliefs.
08:25To appear more convincing, he does not reveal himself as a bot.
08:31Nowadays, AI bots communicate so sophisticatedly that they are almost indistinguishable from real people.
08:36The technology is now very easy to use.
08:41What I want to show with PrismX is that someone like me can do this without training in radicalization or deradicalization.
08:48If I can do it, the government and businesses can too.
08:52And they won't tell them whether they will or not.
08:55And they, as users, no longer know whether their chat partner is real or not.
08:58Since his tool has received media attention, Seiraj has also received many negative comments.
09:06Because a tool like PrismX could also cause a lot of damage and, in the wrong hands, radicalize people.
09:11Whatever they say, whatever they post, can be picked up by such a tool.
09:18It can create a profile of them and target them.
09:21A more complex version of a tool like PrismX could spark unrest.
09:26It could sow discord.
09:27It could change many people's opinions on a particular topic.
09:30It could also identify people who are susceptible to radicalization and turn them into terrorists.
09:36And that's automated and on a large scale.
09:38Imagine how frightening that is.
09:42So, a double-edged sword.
09:44Perhaps it's better to show people directly how fake news, disinformation, and deepfakes work.
09:50And how to recognize them.
09:52Of course, that will be done too.
09:53For example, at the Youth Media Days in Berlin.
09:58Quiz questions.
10:00Virtual Reality Escape Room Games.
10:04And a deepfake photo challenge.
10:07There is a lot to do here at the Youth Media Democracy Days in Berlin.
10:14At this station, you have seven minutes to expose fake news.
10:18Only those who get stuck receive occasional hints from game master Jörg Friedl.
10:24My point is that we should be hunting down fake news, so to speak.
10:27This means that visitors take on the role of fact-checkers in the fictional Ministry of Information Literacy.
10:36To expose fakes, the students check whether at least two reliable sources report the same facts.
10:42It is important to pay attention to the dates and the names.
10:48And if you're unsure, just look it up.
10:51Some people spend six hours every day on social media.
10:55Even though they know that there is a lot of fake news on platforms like Telegram, X or TikTok.
11:00TikTok is covered a lot when it comes to news like Trump or Kik.
11:07The young people here now know that many images in fake news are generated by AI.
11:13At this station, they have to try creating deepfake images themselves using an AI tool.
11:18I think it's important to create this so that you can see for yourself what these things look like.
11:29So that one can also learn about the Jewels, especially how people make these things.
11:35The trainers, all from local non-governmental organizations, are worried that fake news and conspiracy theories are influencing the students.
11:43Some teachers here are also worried.
11:46I believe that it has the same effects on students or young people as it does on adults.
11:53It divides society, leading to fights and the formation of cliques, which are then unleashed in hatred and hate both offline and online.
12:06Social media has drastically changed political communication.
12:10Despite the problems, there is also an advantage.
12:12We can immediately post what we think and join the discussion today.
12:15And maybe even go viral.
12:18What are your thoughts on political freedom of speech on social media?
12:21Does she go too far for you, or not far enough?
12:23Write to us. See you soon.
