officially destinated to youth work can be deviated by corrupt politicians, as Serbian participants shared. Participants from Germany reported how parliamentarians use their instruments as overseers to question the legitimacy of public funding of CSOs including youth work, enhancing the workload for reporting and justification. The ever-challenging financial situation of youth work is therefore worsening because of these developments. The Power of Words The incremental development of the global attack on democracy is also pursued with the deliberate misuse and reinterpretation of the term democracy as well as important principles like the freedom of expression, human rights and children’s rights. The latter are core topics of youth work. The challenge is that some anti-democratic forces claim these terms for their own activities and policies, including in their engagement with young people. A similar mechanism also applies to negative terms. In cases like Türkiye, CSOs and activists can be accused of terrorism for the organization of a demonstration. This is a dangerous and deliberate misuse of language – exploiting fear as a weapon to undermine an activity that should be protected by fundamental democratic rights. Again, Lindberg’s keynote showed how well-funded the impression was that the information cacophony fuels the dismantling of democracy. Disinformation and polarization are significantly more prevalent in countries that are trending toward autocracy than in those moving toward stronger democracy.
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