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“How technology shapes our imaginations deserves more attention than the figure of Elon Musk”

2022-12-22T16:30:16.651Z


INTERVIEW – By focusing on the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, part of public opinion misses the real subject, namely how social networks transform our relationship to the world, analyzes Charleyne Biondi, author of “Dé -coding, a counter-history of digital”.


Charleyne Biondi is a doctor of political theory, with a double degree at Columbia (New York) and Cevipof-Sciences Po. Her doctoral research focuses on the political history of digital technology and the regimes of truth that have accompanied its development, from 1950s cybernetics to Google surveillance capitalism.

She has just published

Dé-coder, une contre-histoire du numérique

(ed. Books, 2022).

LE FIGARO.

- Behind Musk's histrionic management, should we see a broader Twitter crisis?

Charleyne BIONDI.

- The histrionic management you speak of is not specific to Twitter.

Elon Musk applied to the social network management techniques that he had already employed in his other companies, in particular Tesla and SpaceX.

In 2018, when the Tesla Model 3 was having production problems, Musk also launched mass layoffs, frightened employees and investors by publicly making alarmist remarks about the financial health of his company, and encouraged his teams to work as hard as possible. possible, spending whole nights himself at his office, sleeping on a mattress installed in a conference room, chaining 120-hour weeks... He had even hit the headlines with his tweets (already!!) announcing that he intended to buy and de-list Tesla—which obviously never happened.

However, I am not convinced that the figure of Musk deserves much attention.

Admittedly, his personality and his very clear-cut positions give the saga of the takeover of Twitter a particularly “flamboyant” character;

but basically, these managerial practices or techniques about which we are so worried - layoffs, the "extreme" or "hardcore" corporate culture put in place in the name of profitability, and the multiplication of "tests" without a future (like the announcement of a paid subscription on the social network) - have nothing extraordinary in the economic context of the United States, where the markets, including that of employment, are deregulated, and where the cult of free enterprise naturally accommodates all-powerful entrepreneurs that

For Europe, controlling the practices of Gafam and the effects of new foreign technologies represents a geopolitical issue: it is a question of not finding itself subject to these new powers.

Charleyne Biondi

The situation of Twitter therefore illustrates not so much a “crisis” as a well-known phenomenon: that of the irreducible tensions, at the heart of any market democracy, between the ambitions of its economic sphere and its political institutions.

Are we dealing with a redefinition of freedom of expression in our Western democracies or is this dispute of another nature?

First, the “absolute” freedom of speech that Musk advocated when he took over Twitter did not happen.

At one point, Musk was believed to be applying an extreme, uncensored version of American-style free speech to Twitter, something Donald Trump's return to favor on the platform seemed to confirm.

However, unmoderated freedom of expression on a social network can reasonably raise fears of a proliferation of hateful, racist remarks and false information – this is exactly what has happened on Twitter since its takeover.

However, Musk has not eliminated the content moderation teams at Twitter, and he has moreover reconsidered the radicalism of his initial position... However, the concern remains,

The “absolute” freedom of speech that Musk advocated at the time of the Twitter takeover has not happened.

Charleyne Biondi

In Europe, Twitter will not be able to escape the standards of the Digital Services Act (DSA): under European legislation, the unjustified closure of journalists' accounts (as happened last month) would have been severely sanctioned.

Safeguards are therefore possible, but these are often incomplete.

However, the absence of regulation indeed gives the owner of the social network the possibility of transforming Twitter into a weapon of propaganda if he wishes.

Again, Musk's personality and provocative statements make him the focus of all criticism, but in reality the same issue is true for all social media including Facebook/Meta.

The sound formation of public opinion, which is nevertheless one of the pillars of democracy, depends on the goodwill of

All this leads me to think that the issue is not the regulation of freedom of expression, since even Elon Musk recognizes the need to regulate “free speech” and to moderate content.

Once again, I believe that the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk and all that followed above all illustrates the limits of a certain economic policy.

To put it another way, the recognition of the power of influence of social networks on public opinion leads neoliberal logic to a tipping point: it is a reminder (one more) that democracy can only survive if the State regulates its market.

Do you think that France and the European institutions are more aware of the need to regulate social networks and new technologies?

For Europe, controlling the practices of Gafam and the effects of new foreign technologies represents a geopolitical issue: it is a question of not finding itself subject to these new powers.

The data collection and processing capabilities of large digital companies constitute an unprecedented means of influence.

Public opinion is today at the mercy of algorithms, and it is to avoid becoming the "digital colony" of a foreign industry that the European Union has put in place regulatory frameworks to oversee the management of personal data and content.

These laws, which do not exist anywhere else, clearly reflect a political will to create an alternative to Sino-American models and to defend ethical technology.

Unfortunately,

The recognition of the power of influence of social networks on public opinion leads neoliberal logic to a tipping point.

Charleyne Biondi

However, it should be kept in mind that while the issues related to data are indeed unprecedented, this is not the first time that industrial players have played an essential role on the geopolitical level.

Before tech, the aerospace or mining industries also embodied political issues for and between States, and crystallized essential tensions on the international scene.

It is important to remember this, to avoid falling into overly sensationalist talk about the "power" of the technological giants.

According to you, we must succeed in tearing technology away from analyzes in terms of power and trying to understand the fundamental movement that it imprints on our imaginations: that is to say?

Take the example of Twitter: by making the social network the weapon of Elon Musk, or the vehicle of the political interests of the American far right, we reformulate, we update a debate as old as capitalism, which consists in putting guards political institutions against rival market powers.

The “power” of the big industrialists, the excesses of their practices, the social and environmental abuses, the collusion between the economic interests of some and the political parties of others: none of this is unique to our time.

From this point of view, the digital industry only offers a new iteration of issues of power and struggles for influence that pre-exist it.

However, it is my conviction that something specific is at stake in the digital age;

that these ubiquitous technologies, essential to all aspects of our existence, transform society in depth, not only by redefining the old power relations that structure it, but much more fundamentally, by shaping our relationship to the world “from within”.

The object of my research is to bring out the effects of digital technology on society independently of all its "surface" instrumentalisations by such industrial actor or State.

There is indeed a link between digital transformation and the “crisis of meaning” or “crisis of confidence” that the great Western democracies are going through.

Charleyne Biondi

In a way, attaching technology to the “power” of one or the other blinds us to what it is and what it produces, prevents us from analyzing it.

However, it seems to me essential and urgent, at a time when digital is imposing itself as the organizing principle of the world, to develop a critical thinking of digital technology itself, and not simply of its industry.

How does this new ecosystem upset the model of liberal democracy, inherited from the Enlightenment?

Digital technology has become a strategic issue for the sovereignty of States: from a national defense point of view, it is both a new weapon and a new space for conflict;

from an administrative point of view, it is both a new strategic infrastructure and a new tool for managing public policies and populations;

and as we have seen, it is also a new economic policy issue.

Consequently, the need for large-scale public action (to regulate industry, to develop sovereign strategic technologies, etc.) is becoming more and more obvious.

However, acknowledging that technology is now a “political object” is not the same as saying that technology “threatens” democracy.

VS'

is even quite the opposite: as a political object, that is to say, as the “subject” of this or that other public policy, technology is perfectly harmless.

We are not threatened by what we can regulate.

However, and this is the starting point of my book, there is indeed a link between digital transformation and the "crisis of meaning" or "crisis of confidence" that the great Western democracies are going through.

Unlike well-known clichés, this link is not limited to social media misinformation issues, it goes much deeper.

Computer science has given rise to a new paradigm, a new grid for understanding the world that we adopt almost without realizing it each time we use a digital tool.

However, this new way of seeing the world, this new “digital rationality” that infuses the contemporary imagination creates an increasingly wide gap between the aspirations of our digitized society and the political order that governs it.

The risk is

is to believe that our institutions and the main principles that underpin them would be "immune" to digital transformation, that they could remain exactly the same, while all of society, all practices, all individual and collective habits are radically changed elsewhere.

The political challenge of digital is therefore not so much to regulate its industry as to dare to question the legitimacy of institutions belonging to the past.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-12-22

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