From access to information to trust: the new challenge of our time

17 May, World Information Society Day

For more than a century, we dreamed of a world where information would travel faster, further and more freely. Today, that dream has become our daily reality. And sometimes, our problem.

17 May marks World Information Society Day. The date echoes 17 May 1865, when the first International Telegraph Convention was signed. At the time, the challenge was clear: to overcome distance, transmit a signal and connect territories. Later, the United Nations General Assembly dedicated this date to reminding us that the information society is not only about technology, but also about the ability of societies to use information in a useful, responsible and inclusive way.

 

Our challenge has changed.

We no longer lack information. We have too much of it. Too many messages, too many alerts, too much content, too many opinions, too much data, too many versions of the same document.

We have won the battle for access. We have not yet won the battle for quality.

For a long time, accessing information was already a form of power. Controlling and distributing it still are. Today, power is shifting: it lies in the ability to sort, verify, prioritise, contextualise and, sometimes, refuse to use information that is not reliable enough.

Because available information is not necessarily useful information. Information shared a thousand times is not necessarily true. Well-written information is not necessarily solid. Information that suits us is not necessarily accurate.

This is probably one of the most dangerous traps of our time: we often confuse fluidity with reliability.

 

Information is everywhere

Everything circulates quickly, so everything seems obvious. A LinkedIn post, a short video, a screenshot, a statistic taken out of context, a well-structured AI answer. All of these can create an impression of control. Yet behind that appearance, what is essential is sometimes missing: the source, the context, the evidence, the date, the intention, the method.

In civic life, this creates confusion, polarisation and mistrust. We share information because it confirms what we already think. We react to a headline without reading the content. We turn an opinion into a fact. We relay an emotion as if it were proof.

In organisations, the mechanism is different, but the risk is the same. A team makes a decision based on a file that is no longer up to date. An employee works on the wrong version of a document. A project loses time because information is scattered across Teams, SharePoint, emails, personal folders and old servers. A piece of data exists somewhere, but no one knows where, or whether it is still valid.

In both cases, the problem is not only technical. It is cultural.

 

Do we lack critical thinking?

We have learned a great deal about producing, publishing, searching and sharing. We have learned less about how to doubt properly. This is not about suspecting everything, or falling into cynicism. It is about asking a few simple questions before believing, using or passing on information.

Where does it come from? Who produced it? In what context? Is it dated? Can it be verified? Is it a fact, an opinion, an interpretation or a hypothesis? What is missing in order to understand it properly?

These questions should become reflexes. Not only for journalists, experts, teachers or public officials. For each of us.

Artificial intelligence makes this need even more urgent. It can be a remarkable tool for summarising, structuring, comparing or exploring. But it can also produce false answers with great confidence. It can give convincing form to fragile information. It can accelerate content production without automatically strengthening the quality of reasoning.

This does not mean we should reject AI. That would be the wrong answer. The real issue lies elsewhere: the more powerful the tools become, the more demanding we must become. Technology does not replace judgement. It puts it to the test.

But this requirement cannot rest on individual vigilance alone. Telling citizens to “be critical” is not enough. Critical thinking is not a magic reflex. It is a skill that must be learned, practised and passed on.

That is the whole purpose of the work led by the non-profit organisation Citoyens numériques through the RÉCIT approach, inspired by Quebec. The objective is concrete: to train a network of trainers able to give young people the foundations of solid digital lucidity. Not a generalised mistrust of everything circulating online, but the ability to read, question, verify and understand the mechanisms that influence our relationship with information.

Training people in critical thinking in the digital age means learning to recognise our own cognitive biases. It means understanding why certain pieces of information attract us more than others. It also means experimenting with generative AI with discernment: understanding what it can contribute, but also what it can distort, invent or oversimplify.

This approach is essential because it shifts the issue to the right place. The problem is not only access to better tools. The problem is training people who are able to use them with judgement. An information society cannot function sustainably if its citizens do not have a minimum culture of verification, context and responsibility.

 

Exquando’s mission

This is where Exquando’s mission finds a natural echo, without becoming a commercial message. Since its creation, Exquando has worked from a simple conviction: reliable information does not fall from the sky. It is built.

It is built when documents are in the right place. When versions are controlled. When information is complete, secure and up to date. When everyone knows where to store what they produce and where to find what they need. When the organisation understands that information is not a secondary flow, but a condition for trust, cooperation and decision-making.

“Build Trustworthy Information” is therefore not only a professional formula. It is a way of looking at our time.

Ultimately, the same issue runs through society, businesses, public administrations and citizens: how can we ensure that information helps us understand better, rather than lose our way? How can we preserve our capacity for judgement in a world that constantly pushes us to react faster?

World Information Society Day should remind us of this. Progress is no longer only about making information circulate. It is about learning how to give it value again.

From the telegraph of 1865 to the artificial intelligence models of 2026, information remains a precious asset. It can enlighten or mislead. Connect or divide. Strengthen trust or damage it.

The difference does not lie only in the tools we use. It lies in the way we produce, organise, verify, transmit and teach information.