Dal microtargeting politico ai deepfake: come le nuove tecnologie stanno riscrivendo la democrazia in Europa

The increasingly widespread and pervasive use of new technologies is raising unprecedented challenges that call into question the stability of democratic systems. The use of profiling algorithms and sophisticated microtargeting tools in political communication, the spread of manipulated content, deepfakes and the creation of filter bubbles in social media can influence collective opinion and amplify phenomena such as polarisation of public debate and disinformation. This paper aims to analyse the current European legal framework, in particular the Digital Services Act, the Regulation on Political Advertising (PAR) and the AI Act, in order to assess their effectiveness in safeguarding democracy in Europe and protecting citizens from phenomena such as disinformation, political microtargeting and online manipulation.