Social network launched by Trump: "The global agora initiated by Facebook or Twitter has lead in the wing"

Laurent Gayard is professor of history and political science, author of

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- Donald Trump launched his social network Truth Social, after being banned in January from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which accuse him of inciting his supporters to violence on their platforms before the assault on Capitol Hill.

Who do you think this network can appeal to?

Laurent GAYARD.

-

One of the main characteristics of social networks is to lock people in their opinion bubble, it is also on this characteristic that we could base the raison d'être of Facebook and its added value from an economic point of view.

Social networks may seemingly offer freedom of expression a global platform and means of expressing their opinion like never before, the fact remains that Facebook continues to take advantage of what in sociology is called cognitive biases, which in terms of behavior translate into a marked propensity of the individual to want to think with the group - while giving himself the impression that he thinks and speaks against the grain - and naturally seeks out people with whom he agrees or who publish content that confirms his assumptions and opinions.

Faced with what is seen today as a too large presence of “Black Lives Matters” or #MeToo on Twitter, the political opponents of these movements are falling back, like Donald Trump, on other platforms.

Laurent Gayard

It is the mechanism that fuels the conspiracy and it is the behavior that explains why false information on the Internet is published ten times more massively than information based on established facts.

It is a type of universal behavior which also transcends political divisions and which will be encountered both on the left and on the right on social networks, whose content recommendation algorithms work in such a way as to reinforce people in the opinions that 'they maintain and do not fundamentally wish to see questioned.

We can therefore deduce that, in the same way that Facebook groups or Twitter accounts expressing marked political views will aggregate users sharing the same political views and sharing political views in line with their original affiliation, social networks displaying from the outset, a very marked political identity, such as Donald Trump's Social Truth, will attract overwhelmingly supporters of the same side, ideological enemies wishing to monitor their enemies, curious people, journalists and a few researchers ... '' a large dissatisfaction with the big social media does not create a threshold effect favorable to Truth Social or that Donald Trump's speech takes on a universal value, two phenomena that I doubt will occur very soon.

Read alsoAre algorithms going to rule our lives?

Its former campaign spokesperson, Jason Miller, has already launched its social network, Gettr, on July 1, 2021, which claims to be uncensored.

Will social media become more and more polarized in terms of opinion?

This is already the case, if we look at the evolution of Facebook, accused in turn of having favored Trump's victory in 2016, and by Trump supporters today of practicing systematic censorship vis-à-vis of all the profiles that are a little too politically incorrect.

The same goes for Twitter, the political network par excellence, which regularly gives rise to controversies of all kinds, in which politicians and people can see themselves drawn in no time. I will give as an example the case of the unfortunate Antoine Griezmann accused of having relayed racist stereotypes and of indulging in the hated tradition of

when he had the clumsiness of posting on the social network a photo of him made up as a black basketball player (in actually a tribute to his favorite basketball team, he defended himself).

For several years, social networks, more or less confidential, have multiplied and many have put forward two strong arguments to differentiate themselves from the dominant models of Facebook and Twitter: the protection of user data and freedom of speech.

Laurent Gayard

But faced with what is seen today as major ideological and political clean-up operations initiated on their respective platforms by the leaders of Facebook or Twitter, or too much of a presence of “Black Lives Matters” or #MeToo, the political opponents of these movements fall back, like Donald Trump, on other platforms.

However, the phenomenon is already old and “free” alternatives did not wait for Social Truth or GETTR to develop.

We think of Gab (launched in 2017), or the Parler network (2018)

become the refuge of the

American

or supporters of QAnon.

Trump even opened an account on Talk before launching Social Truth.

We can clearly see that the model of the global agora initiated by Facebook or Twitter has a head in the wing even if these social media gather billions of users (or hundreds of millions for

).

Read also Donald Trump's future social network is blazing on Wall Street

For several years, social networks, more or less confidential, have multiplied and many have put forward two strong arguments to differentiate themselves from the dominant models of Facebook and Twitter: the protection of user data and freedom of speech.

We are therefore seeing the development of networks that put forward a model based on

private

, with a smaller audience but greater freedom of tone since moderation is much lighter there.

Or platforms that take the Facebook / Twitter model, but attract more politically marked user communities.

Can this type of network appeal to the French?

In France, the ten most used social networks in 2020 were, in order: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok and Discord

In this list, three social media belong to Facebook: WhatsApp (bought in February 2014 for 19 billion dollars), Instagram (bought in April 2012 for 1 billion) and Messenger. Zuckerberg's company even tried to buy Snapchat in 2013 for $ 3 billion and the offer still stands. In the face of this overwhelming domination, the threshold effect clearly works against Truth Social or Gettr, even in the United States.

Donald Trump has retained a very strong partisan base, however, which, allied to the still great popular discontent, can ensure the success of the two new social media in the homeland of Uncle Sam. In France, the main popular movement in opposition to Emmanuel Macron , the yellow vests, mainly used Facebook as a relay.

We do not really see how Truth Social or Gettr could impose itself in the French landscape but it is very difficult in this area to make predictions, as evidenced by the recent success of a newcomer, Clubhouse, a social media based solely on audio and boasting of giving rise to hundreds of thousands of discussions every day on all subjects, including political ones.