Before the Peace Forum in Paris, the president called this Wednesday for a “much more powerful agenda of protection and regulation in Europe”, in the face of foreign interference and abuses on the platforms.
Emmanuel Macron toughens the tone on social networks. Invited to speak this Wednesday before the Peace Forum in Paris, the president called for a “much more powerful agenda of protection and regulation in Europe” in the face of foreign interference, but especially abuses in terms of information on the platforms. In his sights, the harmful role of these applications in the proper functioning of democratic life, these, castigated the Head of State, being “driven by a process which is to create the maximum excitement which will create the maximum traffic to maximize their advertising pages.” “The entire order of merit which founded our democracies, a relationship to argument, the truth, is completely thrown into the air”he again lamented
Before warning about the daily use of these digital tools, to the detriment of traditional media: “We did anything, we are totally wrong to go and find out about this”. Postulate which pushes Emmanuel Macron to plead for a resumption of “control of our democratic and informational life”thanks to reinforced regulation, then to support his point with two evocative examples. First, the social network X (formerly Twitter), which he accuses of maintaining a political bias in its algorithm. “Openhe squeaked.
Two years after the metamorphosis of Twitter into X, the contrasting successes of competing platforms
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And the president coats his charge against “platforms (Who) decided to break neutrality because the owner of it decided to engage in the democratic struggle and the reactionary international. A dig sounding like a full-blown attack against the transformation of the social network initiated two and a half years ago by Elon Muskboss of Tesla, and former member of the Trump administration – whose ideological proximity to the American conservative right is underlined by Emmanuel Macron. Same observation about the Chinese network TikTokwhere, according to the head of state, “a young French person who creates an account without any characterization and who types the word “Islam” will be exposed to Salafist content after the third content submitted to him.”
Macron against “black lights”
Concerning foreign interference, Emmanuel Macron directly targeted Russia, seen as “the biggest buyers of fake accounts, to destabilize European democracies”. “We are in interference on steroids”he said, before outlining avenues to face these new challenges. Because this “protection and regulation agenda in Europe”which he calls for, must, according to him, remain compatible with «l’innovation» and some “public interest actors”, those offering “free infrastructures”. “I believe very deeply in innovation, but I do not believe for a single second in innovation which is in the service of black lights”he concluded, shooting one last arrow.
In total, around thirty countries – including France, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Brazil, as well as several European and African states – adopted, on the sidelines of this Forum, a declaration “on multilateral action for information integrity and independent media”. Everyone commits to “defend the principle that independent, pluralistic and reliable information constitutes an essential public good for humanity, and to uphold democratic principles within the global information space”. They propose to strengthen “multilateral and multi-party cooperation” in this area.
