In this context, reality can become increasingly complex and difficult to understand, considering that the platformization of life and, mainly, the meeting of the interests of large technology corporations with the content production market has enabled the exponential growth of disinformation and the potentialization of its reach in several countries.
On the other hand, unilateralism and the exacerbation of national security actions on the political agendas of countries, especially the United States, are mentioned by those interviewed in the Global Risks Report 2025 as causing negative repercussions around the world. Such behaviors can have an impact on reducing transparency, as happens in authoritarian regimes. And, as the report emphasizes, such measures can contribute to the consolidation of authoritarian regimes and the regression of democratic regimes.
It is worth noting that contemporary democracy as a whole is experiencing crises that are putting its liberal principles and the set of rights, duties, and freedoms guaranteed by the republican State at risk. This scenario indicates that liberal democratic regimes may not be fulfilling their promises of inclusion and equality, which may be leading populations in many historically democratic countries to become disillusioned with this type of regime.
Since the end of the 20th century, authoritarian ideologies have gradually gained voters and public space around the world. And these new configurations of political power, combined with moments of disillusionment with democracy, have been aggravated by the growing influence of social media and, more recently, Artificial Intelligence, in political narratives that distort facts and relativize the truth in favor of extremist ideals.
Artificial Intelligence and disinformation in electoral processes
When we relate fake news campaigns to the use of disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, we must bear in mind that there is no longer any amateurism in this sector. The disinformation market today already has a “production chain” that encompasses everything from the creation of lies to the execution of content distribution strategies.
To exemplify what we are investigating in terms of disinformation and its interconnections with other phenomena, it is worth mentioning the use of AI tools in electoral communication pieces used in the 2024 elections.
According to the report Artificial Intelligence in the World, from the Brazilian project “Media and Democracy”, from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, last year in India, a country with almost 1 billion voters and where only 46 percent of the population has access to the internet, AI tools were recently used to create deepfake videos with images of politicians who had already died.
These montages were taken to public squares during election rallies, to interfere in public opinion and direct votes.
According to the same report, Mexico, which has around 100 million voters and 24 percent of the population without internet access, was also subjected to deepfake montages that circulated at great speed. During last year’s election campaign, current president Claudia Sheinbaum was portrayed in the media of her main opponent as a “communist.” Similar practices are reported in the Media and Democracy Report’s research in countries such as South Africa and even in the elections for the European Parliament.
The report Generative Artificial Intelligence and Elections, from the Center for Media Engagement at The University of Texas and Austin, which focused on elections in Mexico, India, South Africa and the United States, identified translation tools, voice clones and video editing as the main uses of AI, in addition to automated processes for creating and distributing disinformation content using AI.
In Brazil, the AI in Elections Observatory, consolidated through a partnership between ALAFIA-Lab, Desinformante, and Dataprivacy, listed the main uses of AI in the 2024 municipal elections. We highlight the uses of AI to misinform, create polarizations, and stir up hatred, racism, and misogyny. These contents explore the dynamics of platforms and appropriate algorithmic logic, combined with the exploration of the aesthetics of digital structures.
Given these unusual scenarios that exclude truth and reality, it is worth asking how such uses can cause systemic risks and impact democracies? The answers point to the events of January 8, 2023 as one of the most blatant and visible examples of an attack on democracy in Brazilian political history. And on that occasion, the invasion of public buildings and the destruction of property were coordinated by digital social networks.
The twilight of democracies
Both the Economist Intelligence Democracy Index and the V-Dem Index, linked to the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, point to the deterioration of democratic regimes and the consequent growing autocratization of the world. The Economist Intelligence index is based on 60 indicators grouped into five categories, namely: civil liberties; functioning of government; political participation; political culture, and, finally, electoral process and pluralism. In 2011, the Democracy Index classified 54 countries as imperfect democracies, with hybrid regimes located in 37 nations and authoritarian regimes in 51 countries.
The Democracy Index published in 2024 places Brazil in 51st place as an imperfect democracy in 2023. However, regarding the world, the report highlights that unlike in 2011, when 11 percent of the population lived in full democracies, currently, only 7.8 percent live in countries classified as such. Since the index was created in 2006, Brazil has dropped one score, from 7.8 to 6.7; the USA has dropped from 8.2 to 7.8, going from full to imperfect democracy.
On the other hand, according to the V-Dem-Varieties of Democracy 2024 Report, which focused on elections held in 60 countries last year, 42 countries are in the process of autocratization. And only 18 are in the process of democratization. Among these is Brazil, whose population comprises half of all those who are returning to democratic paths. It is worth considering that among the 42 countries in the process of autocratization, according to the aforementioned index, is India, which holds 18 percent of the world’s population and represents a large part of the 2.8 billion people who live in countries that are in the process of totalizing power.
According to the V-Dem Institute Report, the level of democracy enjoyed by people globally in 2023 has fallen to 1985 levels. As a result, around 5.7 billion people are now living in autocracies, and with the results of the 2024 elections, this number has increased.
The recently published V-DEM Report 2025 highlights the 25 years of growth in autocratization in the world. And questions, in its conclusions, whether democracy is being defeated globally.
Interdependence between politics, capital, and technology
The twilight of democracies can be analyzed from the perspective of the interdependence between this political system, capitalism, and digital technology, which constitutes one of the most important paradoxes of contemporary times. The public openness suggested by digital technology allowed us to reflect on the feasibility of the principles of democracies, for the first time in political history. Participation, transparency, accountability, public debate, equality, and freedom could be made viable through instruments, structures, processes and the digital facility to establish communication, the public communication inherent to democracies.
The so-called digital democracy has surprised epistemologically and has begun to occupy space in research agendas, as demonstrated by scientific production and the functioning of associations and institutes such as the National Institute of Science and Technology in Digital Democracy (INCT-DD). The different configurations of democracies (direct, representative, participatory, and deliberative) have benefited from so many mechanisms capable of bringing the State, society, and the media closer together.
At the same time, the fascination and facilitation of the uses of this technology have also arbitrarily expanded any type of discourse – without ethical shame – and created a global and uncontrollable industrial hub. An industry that defies the constitution of countries with a technology that is as innovative as it is dystopian, insofar as it alters realities, deconstructs the truth, imposes doubt on people and concepts, unbalances the educational process, influences new types of behavior and creates doubts about knowledge and the future.
This entire scenario and its intricate consequences have placed democracies in crisis, in four dimensions: economic, political, social, and epistemic.
We are therefore living in a time when existing democracies are going through different stages, which can be identified by considering the breadth of inequalities, the disqualification of politics, the rise of the extreme right, rationality subjected to emotions, and the power of digital devices defining the limits of misinformation and truth. _______________________________________________________________________________________________
Ana Regina Rêgo is a Professor and Vice-Coordinator of PPGCOM at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI) and Maria Helena Weber is a Professor of Political Communication at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).
This article was translated from Portuguese and is republished from The Conversation.