We Raised a Generation on the Internet—Then Blamed Them for Believing It

Gen Z is drowning in disinformation, and the other generations in the room are pretending it's their fault for not knowing how to swim.

Politico’s latest piece frames Gen Z as the most gullible generation, but what it really describes is something deeper: a generation built by algorithms, left to fend for itself in an ecosystem of misinformation, and then mocked when they fall for it.

You can’t raise a group of kids on screens, cut civics education, defund public schools, and then act shocked when they believe TikToks claiming Helen Keller faked being deaf and blind. This is the result of decades of disinvestment in media literacy, coupled with a tech industry that profits off confusion.

Here’s what the article doesn’t sugarcoat: Gen Z is the most online generation in history, and yet they are worse at discerning fact from fiction than any age group before them. Stanford ran a study with thousands of high school students. Only three of them identified a viral video falsely claiming to show 2016 Democratic voter fraud as actually being footage from Russia. That’s terrifying. But it’s not surprising.

TikTok is now one of the most popular news sources for young people—and the entire platform is structured to prioritize virality over accuracy. Conspiracy theories get millions of views. AI-generated clips go viral before anyone can verify them. And instead of Googling, Gen Z is checking the comments section to fact-check. But if the algorithm only feeds you people who agree with your worldview, the comments don’t tell you what’s true—they just tell you what’s popular in your bubble.

And let’s be real: this isn’t just a Gen Z problem. It’s a media environment problem. But Gen Z happens to be the guinea pigs.

They didn’t grow up in a world where you slowly learned how to question what you saw on TV. They grew up in a world where their friends sent them AI-generated audio clips of Trump saying Washington D.C. should be renamed “District of America,” and where the most-liked comment was “why do we have the dumbest president in American history??” Not until you scroll 20 comments down do you find someone admitting, “This might be fake.”

But again—why wouldn’t they fall for it?

They’re skeptical of traditional institutions, they’ve watched the media spin lies in real time, and they’re more likely to get punished in school for protesting injustice than for failing a fact-check test. And while older generations are out here blaming them for believing the wrong things, they’re the ones who built the system that made truth a matter of branding.

Let’s also stop pretending this is some Gen Z-only brain glitch. Adults fall for garbage information every day—they’re just doing it on Facebook instead of TikTok. The difference is that Gen Z never had a moment to learn the difference between real and fake because the “real” was already being bought and sold by lobbyists, political operatives, and engagement-hungry tech giants.

So what do we do now?

We stop mocking and start investing. In real media literacy. In curricula that teaches students how to spot bias, question sources, and verify information. In platforms that don’t reward chaos with clicks. And in youth-driven media that meets people where they are—without dumbing down the truth.

Gen Z doesn’t need condescension. They need tools. They need support. They need adults who stop pretending “just Google it” is a media strategy. They need the digital version of what older generations had in public libraries, in critical classrooms, and in fact-checked nightly news broadcasts.

We also need to get honest about the fact that disinformation is a business model, not a glitch. If you’re not addressing the incentive structures that make viral lies profitable, you’re not solving the problem—you’re just finger-pointing.

If we don’t act fast, it’s not just Gen Z who’ll be lost in the algorithm. It's everyone. Because the infrastructure of information is collapsing, and if we don’t rebuild it with intention, the next generation won’t be asking, “What’s real?”—they’ll be asking, “Does it matter?”