However, ignoring viral content proves insufficient from a systemic perspective. Governments and communities develop countermeasures, including watermarking (ASEAN Guide on AI Governance), detection tools, or peer-to-peer verification (Deepfakes Analysis Unit, India). These focus on mitigation and adaptation but do not cover all AI risks.
More complex post-truth issues arise from personalised search engines and AI chatbots. The pursuit of rapid access to highly plausible, but not necessarily verified, information creates significant vulnerabilities. The issue is no longer merely social media feeds and content, but primary sources of information themselves.
This represents a shift in “media power” from social networks to new personalised AI platforms. In 2025-2026, this prompted a wave of state-led initiatives to develop national or regional large language models (LLMs) in China, South Korea, Russia, and the UAE, designed to reflect specific cultural contexts and security priorities. This marks a new front line of the post-truth struggle: not just fighting falsehoods but ensuring that the primary sources of information themselves do not become tools of foreign political influence.
Post-truth conditions push political actors beyond content moderation to platform and infrastructure control. The US Federal agencies attempt to prioritise governmental sources in chatbot responses, the European Union’s expanded Digital Services Act and AI Act now strive to cover generative AI with transparency obligations, while the BRICS+ nations are exploring cross-verification mechanisms for synthetic media. The competition is no longer just about narratives, but AI models, content identification and prompt results.
The discussion still centres on digital platforms in politics. Major AI companies (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic) may hold information monopolies, but competition and platform pluralism can counteract this. Social network monopolies once seemed unbreakable. Now, regional and national AI alternatives (LatamGPT, Sarvam AI) emerge alongside decentralised networks, offering options. Ultimately, with AI or social networks, the key is balancing open information flow with responsible social conduct.
One lesson from AI development is that technology amplifies, but does not create, political and informational fractures. The battle against post-truth is not just about technological fixes or individual critical thinking. It is a matter of political will, institutional capacity, and social consensus. It also represents the constant struggle for attention and emotions.
The past decade of post-truth has demonstrated that simply letting information circulate freely is no longer practical. Rather than choosing between regulation and freedom, societies face different models of governance. These include platform-led moderation seen in the West, calls for fair AI oversight in the Global South, and unified national AI systems in other regions. In the coming decade, states and communities are likely to reassert control over digital spaces. Without governance adapted to local contexts, post-truth dynamics will not just persist but deepen, eroding inter-state communication and trust.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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