Protecting the Vulnerable

Postmodern relativism is a dangerous tool in the hands of authoritarian regimes. They are willing to undermine public trust within democratic institutions by spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories. One of the most vulnerable target group is the tech-savvy generation Z that is known to be “digitally native”. However, this generation’s lack of critical media consumption and the homogeneous climate of opinion generated by social media makes them prone to political manipulation.

We are way beyond the era of techno-optimism when the biggest fans of social media argued that new technologies would help to overcome political polarisation and hate speech. Yet, techno-pessimism has not prevailed since Donald Trump started to “weaponise” Twitter.

Jean Baudrillard was an early pioneer of thinking about technology’s role in society. In the 1980s, he claimed that we were entering a new era of history in which society was moving to a neo-capitalist cybernetic order that aims at total control. Baudrillard considered that when structures are lacking, nothing remains solid in a society.

As a result, most important things do not happen in reality but in a digital reality, therefore, as Baudrillard argued, hyperreality has replaced the social reality. This hyperreality is a mere simulation of life (“simulacra”).