Digital security is not a luxury, it is a civic duty
When AI becomes the default tool for producing content, cybersecurity and media literacy stop being two skills and become one.
The starting point is a number: roughly 472,000 active social media users in a country of some 620,000 people. At that density, what happens in the feed is not a niche concern — it is public life. Cambridge Analytica showed how personal data can be turned into political persuasion, and the mechanics have only become cheaper since.
The essay explains why recommendation systems optimised for attention rather than accuracy produce echo chambers, citing Facebook’s own internal finding that 64% of joins to extremist groups came directly from algorithmic recommendations — a serious problem in a country where more than 60% of people get their news primarily through social platforms.
It then moves to synthetic media: the 2022 fake video of Zelensky calling for surrender, a fraud in which an AI-cloned executive voice moved 243,000 dollars, and the specific vulnerability of young people to manipulated images used for harassment and blackmail. The Montenegrin example is closest to home — a deepfaked television interview with a well-known doctor, edited to look like an endorsement of a dubious medical product and distributed through a site imitating RTCG. The closing section is practical: unnatural blinking, lip-sync drift, audio artefacts, and above all the habit of verifying before sharing.
Key findings
- 01Around 472,000 active social media users in Montenegro make platform dynamics a matter of public interest, not private taste.
- 02Cybersecurity and media literacy are now a single competence rather than two separate skills.
- 03Facebook’s internal research found 64% of extremist-group joins came from its own algorithmic recommendations.
- 04More than 60% of Montenegrins get their news primarily through social media.
- 05Deepfake fraud is already operational: the 2022 fake Zelensky surrender video and a $243,000 AI voice-cloning transfer.
- 06Local case: a deepfaked interview with a well-known doctor promoting a dubious product, spread via a site imitating RTCG.