Mr. Aref Salem, your comments regarding the importance of social media in our democracy this week made me jump. While I know full well that they are part of a calculated political exercise on your part, I find them downright irresponsible and ill-founded, as you are the interim leader of Ensemble Montréal and leader of the official opposition at Montreal City Hall.
You argue that restricting access to an account, as Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante did by blocking comments under hers on X and Instagram platforms, is “not how democracy works.” I ask you the question: have you read or consulted these same networks in order to measure the level of democratic interaction found on the accounts of our elected officials, recently?
No matter what news or announcement is being pushed there—from the development of a new park to the creation of a bike path—we witness the same deluge of insults, spiteful comments and downright hateful comments. And you think our democracy is doing well?
Freedom of expression is certainly fundamental to the health of our democracy, but it does not give the right to say anything in its name.
Social networks have, unfortunately, become, over the years, the place of a great deal of nonsense. As the author Giuliano da Empoli brilliantly illustrates in his book The engineers of chaos (JC Lattès), malicious actors quickly saw an unexpected opportunity to foment hate movements. Some even managed to overthrow governments and call into question the very foundations of our democracy — with the results we know.
Faced with the crisis of confidence that all major democracies are currently experiencing, praising the role of social networks in our “democratic process” is, it seems to me, showing a blindness equivalent to that of the doctors of the 1950s who promoted cigarettes… for our health.
A negative effect
It’s time for us to wake up, because the studies are very clear: social networks not only have a negative effect on democracy, but they also have effects on our social fabric, our young people, our biology, our mental health — and so on.
Which is not so surprising when you think about it. It is worth remembering, for example, that X (formerly Twitter) is not a democratic tool or even a media outlet; it is a digital platform owned by Elon Musk, a deluded billionaire who regularly and shamelessly feeds his own network with conspiracy theories and disinformation. A man who also bows to the antidemocratic demands of his client countries in order to stay in business. For example, just this week, he republished a story about a false rumor that Haitian immigrants were kidnapping and eating pets in the United States. (Sweet democracy.)
In short, while you are tearing your shirt in public to score a few political points at the expense of Mayor Valérie Plante, I would like to take the opportunity to send a message to all our politicians: when will there be a collective movement of our elected officials — and other leaders in our society — to abandon social networks?
Unthinkable, you say?
Yet email and the Web remain very effective tools for contacting our elected officials and interacting with them quickly. And they have the advantage of requiring the submission of real, verified personal information before submitting a comment.
Because true democracy is above all this: taking responsibility for the statements we make in the public space.