The too easy solution of blaming the young

Broadly speaking, the cliché is that many young people vote for the far-right because they get their information from toxic sources on social media. I would like to add some comments to this idea. Disenchantment is a driver of young people's votes, certainly, but the information equation is a bit more complex. Thefake news, according to the dominant school of thought, are more prevalent among older age groups. Facebook and WhatsApp groups are particularly conducive to spreading all sorts of false information. In the case of young people, however, the effect is indirect. It's not so much that they swallow lies as that they have grown up in an environment where manipulation was the order of the day and, therefore, their instinctive reaction has been to reject the communication paradigm wholesale. And they have done so because, in large part, many traditional media outlets have tenaciously contributed to this discredit. Once the idea of "You can't trust anyone, they're all deceiving you" sinks in, it's easier to fall into the traps of content creators with a certain personal charisma who dish out easy solutions to complicated problems. See how it wasn't that difficult, if you speak plainly? And these are usually the positions embraced by the far-right. In the end, fatxa and fatxenda are related words.

Therefore, the media education provided in high schools is not only insufficient but also misguided, as it fosters this attitude of permanent suspicion: "Don't share anything! Always be suspicious!" And this paralysis is precisely the benefit pursued by those who want to destroy the communication landscape where (good) journalism acts as a counter-power to discourses of abuse, hatred, and toxicity. I think it's much smarter to tell them: "Learn to distinguish good journalism, which exists everywhere, from those who pervert it." It's not that difficult and the benefit is enormous.