Fractured Reality

This report examines the evolving impact of digital technologies on European democracy, arguing that platforms algorithmically privilege negative and conflictual content, fragmenting shared reality into what the authors term a “fantasy-industrial complex,” while foreign control of dominant digital infrastructure exposes democratic discourse to direct and indirect interference. The report presents recommendations from fostering alternative public spaces and crowd-sourced knowledge systems to reforming business models, restoring user agency, and advancing EU digital sovereignty through decentralised infrastructure. The authors conclude that digital autonomy is a necessary condition for democratic resilience, and that structural reform of underlying business models is a prerequisite for protecting the integrity of the European information space.