Comment: It is about time France put social media in its place

For some years, Emmanuel Macron has been promising France will take its own steps to ban social media for children under 15 if this is not done at European level.

“We can’t wait,” he declared in June on France 2 radio.

He is right. How much longer are we going to put off tackling the monster that we have created, that we carry around with us and that panders to our weaknesses? 

Why do we let it damage lives and distort elections with its tidal wave of misinformation and lies? 

There was a time before social media arrived when the internet was gloriously egalitarian, anarchist (in the positive sense of the word), creative and generous. 

It nurtured our higher selves, put souls in contact with one another and enlightened. 

That brave digital experimentation in the intelligence of crowds has since given way to a commercial rush to the lowest common denominator.

I suppose I should not be all that surprised. 

Anonymity

Give the average person, regardless of rationality or emotional maturity, a pseudonymous platform and tell them the truth does not matter (or is relative, which is the same thing); that the elites are lying to them; that it is okay to wish violence upon one’s political enemies instead of engaging with them in intelligent debate; that there are simple solutions to complex problems; and that democracy is a load of old wokeness – and what are they going to do? 

Add to the global stock of wisdom, compassion and creative thinking or do exactly the opposite?

The state of contemporary internet communications is not the result of some inevitable process but of a series of societal choices about what we want and are willing to allow. 

When challenged about their ethics, social media platforms usually offer the same specious excuse: “Technology is not bad per se; it is how people use it.” 

This is half true. 

Corporate power

The last part should read “how powerful corporations manipulate the rest of us with it”.

What we do not want to recognise, it seems, is that every technological innovation is double-edged: its potential benefits weigh exactly as much as its potential hazards. 

We can and must decide to make it work for us and not against us.

If we want to live in a better world, we are going to have to learn to bite the hand that feeds us with an unending stream of cute kitten videos interspersed with distorted facts and opinions about the complex world we live in. 

This may mean disconnecting – there is nothing like customers voting with their thumbs to make cynical corporations take note.

It may mean we have to work harder to find information. 

It will certainly mean rediscovering the lost art of debate: understanding the other’s point of view, listening and thinking before launching our prejudices at them.

If we don’t learn to put social media in its proper place – as a useful means of communication if used with moderation and fact-checking – then we will only exacerbate the world’s problems and continue electing incompetent, narcissistic, harmful individuals to positions of power instead of the altruistic leaders we so badly need. 

The last presidential election in France was a remarkable feat of public debate. 

Let us hope the next one does not degenerate into a battle of soundbites on social media.