s exponential technologies accelerate, information is weaponized across borders, communities, and various identity divides. Bridging these divides requires top–down strategies including, corporate reform, and platform standards. Yet top–down strategies will not be enough unless we invest in resilience from the ground up, especially in communities most vulnerable to climate shocks, displacement, economic disruption, and conflict. We need societies that embrace information integrity as part of community principles rooted in shared values such as privacy, security, human rights, and dignity. Information integrity rests on the capacity of people to evaluate the content they consume on the basis of accuracy, consistency, reliability, fidelity, safety, and transparency. Together, these pillars provide communities with a practical vocabulary for what trustworthy information should look like.
Community centers—including libraries, schools, cultural centers, youth programs, and faith groups—must become hubs of conversation, learning, and discernment. These institutions are not just service providers. They are places where shared values are formed and lived out. They bring families and neighbors together to learn how to interpret the information that floods their devices, situate it in civic and cultural context, and make better judgments in real time. They serve as the nudge of encouragement to pause and ask questions. By grounding practice in both shared values and the six pillars of information integrity, community centers help people resist manipulation while building adaptive skills that strengthen both civic and economic resilience.
Raising Digitally Fluent Communities
In classrooms, information integrity should not be reduced to defensive lessons about what to avoid. It should be woven into civics, literature, and technology courses, where students practice applying the pillars—testing accuracy, probing reliability, questioning provenance, and looking for transparency. This helps young people understand not only what to reject but what to demand from platforms. In communities, workshops, peer groups, and intergenerational programs can extend this practice, transforming discernment into a shared cultural value anchored in respect for privacy, dignity, and human rights.
The Digital FluencyCollective illustrates how this work can scale inclusively. Its toolkit, co–created with global partners, gives parents and educators practical conversation guides and integrity frameworks that adapt to local needs. Partners then feed insights back into the initiative, ensuring it evolves with the lived realities of diverse communities. This global–local loop keeps information integrity tied to the larger ethos of rights and dignity while reinforcing the six pillars in everyday practice.
Critically, this orientation does more than help individuals avoid harm. It empowers them to shape and harness innovation as both workers and citizens. People anchored in shared values and guided by the six pillars are better prepared to adapt to technological change, to resist manipulation, and to demand innovations that advance human dignity. In labor markets, this means resilience: workers who can navigate AI–driven disruption and apply discernment as a professional strength. In civic life, it means agency: citizens who can counter weaponized narratives and press for technologies aligned with democratic values.
For communities facing climate disruption, conflict, or displacement, these anchors can be lifelines that preserve trust, empower adaptation, and protect against manipulation. As much of the world faces heightened vulnerability, community centers may be our strongest line of defense. They turn shared values into daily practice, and information integrity into an expectation rather than an exception. In doing so, they equip people not only to withstand disruption but to direct innovation toward a more equitable, human–centered future.
a global affairs media network
Building digital resilience through information integrity
Image via Adobe Stock.
October 28, 2025
Building resilience in the digital age requires more than platform reform—it demands communities grounded in information integrity. By teaching discernment and shared values, local institutions can turn digital fluency into civic strength and human dignity, writes Camille Stewart Gloster.
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s exponential technologies accelerate, information is weaponized across borders, communities, and various identity divides. Bridging these divides requires top–down strategies including, corporate reform, and platform standards. Yet top–down strategies will not be enough unless we invest in resilience from the ground up, especially in communities most vulnerable to climate shocks, displacement, economic disruption, and conflict. We need societies that embrace information integrity as part of community principles rooted in shared values such as privacy, security, human rights, and dignity. Information integrity rests on the capacity of people to evaluate the content they consume on the basis of accuracy, consistency, reliability, fidelity, safety, and transparency. Together, these pillars provide communities with a practical vocabulary for what trustworthy information should look like.
Community centers—including libraries, schools, cultural centers, youth programs, and faith groups—must become hubs of conversation, learning, and discernment. These institutions are not just service providers. They are places where shared values are formed and lived out. They bring families and neighbors together to learn how to interpret the information that floods their devices, situate it in civic and cultural context, and make better judgments in real time. They serve as the nudge of encouragement to pause and ask questions. By grounding practice in both shared values and the six pillars of information integrity, community centers help people resist manipulation while building adaptive skills that strengthen both civic and economic resilience.
Raising Digitally Fluent Communities
In classrooms, information integrity should not be reduced to defensive lessons about what to avoid. It should be woven into civics, literature, and technology courses, where students practice applying the pillars—testing accuracy, probing reliability, questioning provenance, and looking for transparency. This helps young people understand not only what to reject but what to demand from platforms. In communities, workshops, peer groups, and intergenerational programs can extend this practice, transforming discernment into a shared cultural value anchored in respect for privacy, dignity, and human rights.
The Digital FluencyCollective illustrates how this work can scale inclusively. Its toolkit, co–created with global partners, gives parents and educators practical conversation guides and integrity frameworks that adapt to local needs. Partners then feed insights back into the initiative, ensuring it evolves with the lived realities of diverse communities. This global–local loop keeps information integrity tied to the larger ethos of rights and dignity while reinforcing the six pillars in everyday practice.
Critically, this orientation does more than help individuals avoid harm. It empowers them to shape and harness innovation as both workers and citizens. People anchored in shared values and guided by the six pillars are better prepared to adapt to technological change, to resist manipulation, and to demand innovations that advance human dignity. In labor markets, this means resilience: workers who can navigate AI–driven disruption and apply discernment as a professional strength. In civic life, it means agency: citizens who can counter weaponized narratives and press for technologies aligned with democratic values.
For communities facing climate disruption, conflict, or displacement, these anchors can be lifelines that preserve trust, empower adaptation, and protect against manipulation. As much of the world faces heightened vulnerability, community centers may be our strongest line of defense. They turn shared values into daily practice, and information integrity into an expectation rather than an exception. In doing so, they equip people not only to withstand disruption but to direct innovation toward a more equitable, human–centered future.
