Towards a Quebec Facebook? | The duty

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It started with a cry from the heart on LinkedIn. It then took the form of a public letter published in The duty. This is becoming the new project of a handful of Quebec Web pioneers: creating a social and cooperative network that will bring together Internet users and local businesses disappointed by foreign platforms.

The name of this possible Quebec social network has not yet been decided. Its working name is “New Place”. If all goes as hoped by the professional and now veteran of digital media Steve Proulx, who will not quibble with us if we call him the idea behind the project, we will have by the end of 2024 at least an online draft of what would be a social network created by and for its users.

A draft which is still to be done, specifies the president of the content marketing agency 37e Avenue. “Above all, I am its spokesperson, because I need people interested in the project to come forward and collaborate in its creation,” he said in an interview.

The form therefore remains to be defined, but the substance, the context, is already known: the media are mired in a crisis which has now lasted for around fifteen years and which has only had a respite thanks to government aid which appeared during the pandemic. Public assistance that several media want to see improved, urgently moreover, given that the Online News Act has hurt them more than expected, despite Google’s about-face last week.

“It doesn’t make sense that the media, in 10 or 12 years, have put themselves in such a position of dependence on Facebook,” continues Steve Proulx. Since 2008, I have been campaigning for Quebec media to stop seeing themselves as competitors, in a market as small as ours, when the competitors are foreign giants who make fun of us. »

It doesn’t make sense that the media, in 10 or 12 years, have put themselves in such a position of dependence on Facebook. Since 2008, I have been campaigning for Quebec media to stop seeing themselves as competitors, in a market as small as ours, when the competitors are foreign giants who make fun of us.

“Let’s try collaboration and perhaps get closer to ending the crisis. »

One for all

Steve Proulx brought together 25 people around his project. People from traditional and digital media, from the IT sector, for that matter. He then sent a survey to just over 1,000 people, 75% of whom responded that they would like to see the emergence of a new Quebec social platform.

“We would have no claim to compete with Facebook, but people are already used to consulting several networks every day, so we think we have a role to play in giving them access to information,” says Mr. Proulx . That of the media, that of traders or non-media organizations, those of other users. »

The time is right, adds the Montreal entrepreneur. History has shown it a little: you don’t waste a good crisis. That of the media is an opportunity to review the rules of the game, according to him. “There is a cultural peril right now, like 100 years ago, when the radio waves were monopolized by American radio stations. It was necessary to create Radio-Canada to create a Canadian place on the airwaves. Today, radio is the Internet. »

The statistics reinforce the impression of a significant danger. The French-speaking experience in North America is drowned out by the English-speaking content of foreign platforms. Young people are born into a world where Quebec cultural institutions are almost invisible to them. “When we were young, music, TV, Quebec cinema really existed — and then, with digital, it exploded,” laments Steve Proulx.

Can we reverse the trend? “I don’t know,” he replies. But at least we can try? »

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