Pope Leo XIV Hails Agency Journalism as a "Bulwark" Against Post-Truth

Pope Leo XIV praised the work of press agencies this Thursday, calling them a "bulwark" against the "shifting sands" of post-truth and the fake news that artificial intelligence makes viral.

"The world needs free, rigorous, and objective information," the Pope said in an audience at the Vatican with members of the MINDS International network, which brings together various news agencies, including AFP.

"Thanks to your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the old art of lying, seek to sow discord in order to divide and conquer," declared the American and Peruvian pontiff.

"You can also be a bastion of civilization against the shifting sands of approximations and post-truth," the Bishop of Rome emphasized.

Robert Francis Prevost, who has himself appeared in fake videos delivering AI-generated speeches, added that the "valuable service" of press agencies "must serve as an antidote to the proliferation of junk information."

"Algorithms generate content and data on a scale and at a speed never seen before. But who governs them?" asked the head of the Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIV therefore insisted on remaining vigilant "so that the information and the algorithms that govern it today are not in the hands of a few."

- Harmful Content -

According to a benchmark report on democracy published in September by International IDEA, a Stockholm-based think tank, press freedom has deteriorated considerably worldwide over the past five years.

At the same time, major platforms like Meta and X have reduced their content verification programs.

AFP participates in a "fact-checking" program developed by Facebook, present in Latin America, Asia, and the EU, which remunerates over 80 media outlets worldwide in 26 languages.

Under pressure from the Trump administration, Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta (Facebook, Instagram), reversed his existing policy in January, which had involved investing millions of dollars in monitoring sensitive content.

Zuckerberg thus announced he was ending the company's fact-checking program by journalists in the United States—in which AFP participated—and surprisingly labeled the practice "censorship," a term used by Republicans in power, particularly by Vice President JD Vance.

Since then, the volume of hate speech content has increased on its platforms in the United States, according to an investigation published in June by digital rights organizations.

- Tribute to the Press in Gaza and Ukraine -

The 70-year-old pontiff also reiterated his call for the release of journalists "unjustly persecuted and imprisoned for trying to do their informational work."

"Being a journalist can never be considered a crime," he said, and paid tribute to reporters killed in the line of duty, "victims of war and the ideology of war, which tries to prevent journalists from being" on the ground.

"If today we know what is happening in Gaza and Ukraine and other lands bloodied by wars, we owe it to them," the reporters, he also said.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, some 200 journalists have died in Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas two years ago, and another 22 have been killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began in February 2022.

Since his election by the College of Cardinals on May 8, the successor to Francis has repeatedly warned about the challenges posed by the development of artificial intelligence and has called for the adoption of demanding legal frameworks to protect human dignity.