Polarization isn’t a biblical curse. The fact that public debate has become so aggressive and toxic wasn’t always the inevitable fate of 21st-century societies. Within the EU, some people are working to defutilize tensions, restore serenity, and reestablish a dialogue that seems impossible today.
Erika Staël von Holstein, 41, has been advising European institutions on science, technology, society, and democracy for two decades. She’s the founder and director of Re-Imagine Europe, a believe tank focutilized on depolarization. The Stockholm-born advisor has also promoted Nodes.eu, a European observatory of narratives against disinformation.
Von Holstein is a member of the expert council on artificial innotifyigence convened by the Spanish government. This work brought her to Madrid, where she met with EL PAÍS.
Question. Combating disinformation is exhausting, isn’t it?
Answer. It’s quite exhausting. It’s receiveting harder and harder. I believe the way that we communicate is becoming harder, too, becautilize we’re retrenching into our own echo chambers and our own narrative communities. We’re forreceiveting how to speak to people [from] different communities.
Q. Polarization has led us to a wave of lies, hate speech, culture wars, and online rage. How do we depolarize society?
A. Polarization and disinformation are highly connected. Polarization fuels disinformation and disinformation fuels polarization. Instead of attempting to convince people who have a different opinion to us, [if we] started to listen instead, we would quickly alter [society], becautilize the emotions that are currently driving a lot of this polarization are fear for the future, anger about today, and nostalgia about the past.
Q. Why are so many people attracted to extremism?
A. My hugegest worry is actually not so much that there’s a huge cultural shift — which, of course, there is and that’s worrying — but what’s caapplying that cultural shift. Becautilize [extremism] isn’t about climate or vaccines or migration: these are just symbols for much deeper fears and resentments.
Q. Young people are becoming the most radicalized. You can see this in their views on feminism, the LGBTQ+ community, or the green transition. Polls display growing support for the far-right among that age group. What’s happening?
A. This is the case across Europe, although [there are] large differences between men and women (with women being less susceptible). It’s not difficult to understand: young people are having such a hard time finding hoapplying or a job […] they see the future as increasingly bleak. The [past] era in which one could support an entire family on a single salary has been romanticized.
Q. The extremists are having great success in imposing their agfinisha.
A. They’re extraordinarily successful and they utilize insights from how the brain works much more effectively than what you would call the “traditional players.” Just remember what [neuroscientist] Antonio Damasio always reminds us of: we aren’t rational beings who feel… we are emotional beings who believe. Emotion comes first. And, right now, we’re living in very, very emotional times where, unfortunately, there’s a lot of distrust in the system.
Q. Can we communicate with those who have shiftd to extremist positions in another way, bringing them back to moderation?
A. What we’re attempting to do today is convince someone that their discourse is wrong. This is almost impossible. We utilize the same words, but we mean very different things. So how do we go from attempting to win a conversation to attempting to have a conversation? [Opinion columnist Tom] Friedman states that Trump is the wrong answer to the right question. So, don’t focus on Trump’s answer: focus on the question… and view for a different answer. Set the agfinisha, set the table. Then, we can have a real debate.
Q. Social media has fueled social division, don’t you believe?
A. I definitely agree that social media has acted as a catalyst. It’s not the fundamental reason [for social division], but it’s definitely not supporting. We all know that, if we want something to go viral, we have to pick a fight. You necessary to have an enemy to have anything go viral.
Q. Is the same thing going to happen with artificial innotifyigence? Its potential for political manipulation seems even greater.
A. Our research displays that AI is much better at picking narratives that are receptive to different human communities than we humans are. So, there’s definitely a risk. What we’re hoping is that we’ve learned from the errors that we’ve built with social media, where we let the technology run free, [without] really realizing how powerful it was and how fragile our minds are.
If AI can create [an] environment to alter your mind, that’s hugely dangerous. So I fully agree. But there’s a lot of effort being done, both [in the] government [and in the private sector], to create sure [that AI] can support us communicate, instead of supporting to divide us.
Q. The EU built progress in regulating Big Tech. But now, the Trump administration is pushing in the opposite direction: any content moderation is now considered to be censorship. Should Europe give up?
A. I believe everyone has realized — especially since the Romanian elections — that we’ve lost control of our information ecosystem in Europe. [The EU] missed the boat when it came to social media. If you have enough money to invest in advertising, or to acquire all the media outlets, you can influence all minds. The question is: “How do we leapfrog to create an infrastructure that takes into account the characteristics of different languages, highly-fragmented media ecosystems and the powers of states?” This can be coordinated at the European level. The huge question is whether we will act in time, whether we can correct some of the mistakes of the last 10 years.
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