Too much disinformation on Web says pope

(ANSA) - Vatican City, January 24 - There is too much disinformation and distortion of facts on the Internet, Pope Francis said Thursday.
    "If the Internet represents an extraordinary possibility of access to knowledge," the pope said, "it's true that it has also revealed itself to be one of the places most exposed to disinformation and conscious and targeted distortion of facts and interpersonal relations, which often assume the form of discredit".
    The pope warned against "the manipulatory use of personal data, aimed at gaining advantages on the political and economic plane" and for young people against the fact that "one child in four is involved in episodes of cyber bullying".
    The pope also called for a halt to the use of social media to "foment hatred and prejudice".
    "They too often give space to suspicion and the venting of all types of prejudice (ethnic, sexual, religious and others)," he said.
    "This tendency fuels groups that exclude heterogeneity, that fuel in the digital milieu too an unbridled individualism, ending up sometimes in fomenting spirals of hate".