Revisiting digital falsehood : why youth-centred policy matters

This paper argues that digital falsehoods should be understood not as isolated ‘fake news,’ but as a systemic ‘false information regime’ that produces cumulative public harm, particularly for young people. It is a governance failure emerging from platform incentives, regulatory gaps, political interests, and economic models. Within this ecosystem, youth occupy a paradoxical position: they are intensive users of digital platforms, highly exposed to manipulation, and at the same time key vectors in the rapid circulation of misleading narratives. The consequences extend beyond distorted online debate to tangible harm, including polarisation, erosion of trust in institutions, and the translation of online mobilisation into offline violence. The paper contends that platform regulation alone, however necessary, is insufficient. It calls for youth centred, preventive, and system level interventions, including curriculum embedded digital literacy, design safeguards, algorithmic accountability, and regulatory oversight of emerging fact-checking arrangements, offering transnational policy lessons and democratic safeguards in the Global South and beyond.