Artificial intelligence and disinformation: new threat to journalism in Colombia

News consumption in Colombia is in decline, affected by distrust in the media and the proliferation of disinformation online, warns the Digital News Report 2024, released this Monday.

In an environment marked by technological advances, the use of artificial intelligence both to combat and perpetuate disinformation poses new ethical and operational challenges for the main Colombian media, he says.

The media landscape in Colombia faces several important challenges, including the drop in news consumption, violence against journalists, the discretionary use of government advertising, the indiscriminate use of artificial intelligence (AI) and disinformation, and the change in the consumption of digital media, indicates the report prepared by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford.

News consumption from major journalism brands has decreased due to the growing tendency to not be informed (44%), low levels of trust in the media (3. 4%), online misinformation and polarization.

This has affected large television channels, such as Caracol Televisión and RCN TV, as well as leading online media such as ElTiempo.com and Pulzo.com, the report adds.

The document also points out that official advertising has been used to “binding loyalties, silencing critics, improving the image of politicians and violating the basic principles of state contracting.””, according to the Foundation for Freedom of the Press (FLIP).

In fact, the 44% of the journalists surveyed mentioned knowing local media that stopped publishing something for fear of losing government advertising, and almost half knew of a journalist or media that changed their editorial position for an advertising contract.

The situation becomes especially worrying due to the persistence of violence and attacks against journalists, such as the murder of social leader and citizen journalist Jaime Vásquez in the department of Cúcuta in April of this year, a tragic example of the risks that journalists face. In colombia.

To this must be added a growing concern about the use of artificial intelligence to generate disinformation, such as the ‘deepfakes’ – an advanced form of digital manipulation that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake videos, images or other content – that imitate television presenters, for example.

At the same time, media outlets such as El Tiempo, El Espectador and Caracol TV are using AI to improve the efficiency of their workflows and convert occasional visitors into regular subscribers.

Finally, the Colombian chapter of the Digital News Report 2024 indicates that the use of social platforms for news has decreased, while TikTok continues to grow in popularity, with the 22% of respondents using it for news. “This presents an additional challenge for publishers, as there is less opportunity to redirect traffic to their websites and applications,” supports the report.