5 November 2024, Prague, Czechia, Charles University, Vlastenecký sál
Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, this year’s CEDMO consortium annual conference addresses the contemporary challenge of disinformation. In Bradbury’s novel, firemen ignite books to suppress knowledge and control the populace, ensuring that critical thinking is extinguished in favour of a docile society. The title refers to the temperature at which paper burns, symbolising the destruction of truth and the power that controls knowledge.
In today’s world, disinformation acts as the modern equivalent of these destructive fires. The spread of falsehoods across digital platforms threatens to consume the integrity of information in our societies. The conference will focus on three vital strategies to combat this danger: fact-checking, media literacy, and AI regulation. Each represents a crucial effort to counteract the harmful effects of disinformation.
Fact-checking stands as a guardrail against the spread of false narratives, preserving the integrity of information much like those who secretly memorized books in Fahrenheit 451 kept knowledge alive. Media literacy empowers individuals to critically engage with information, encouraging a society that values truth and understands the difference between fact and fiction. Meanwhile, AI regulation, through frameworks like the EU AI Act and the EU Digital Services Act, seeks to harness technology responsibly, preventing it from becoming a tool that amplifies disinformation.
This conference will explore how these tools can be effectively deployed to resist the spread of disinformation, protect the truth and ensure that society remains informed and engaged. In doing so, we aim to highlight the importance of preserving knowledge and truth in the face of growing challenges, much like the protagonists in Bradbury’s novel who fight to keep the light of knowledge alive amidst the darkness of censorship.
Join us for the in-person event which will dive into the most pressing topics linked to tackling information disorders in three high-level discussions:
Panels
- Regulations – Implementation of Digital Services Act
- Generative AI within Digital Transformation
- Media Literacy and Fact-checking (Practitioners’ Point of View)
Partners
With the Support of:
This project has received funding from the European Union under the call: DIGITAL-2023-DEPLOY-04, project 101158609. This website reflects the views only of the independent Consortium, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.