Prom the perils that threaten liberal democracies, there are (at least) two against which it is urgent to act: the deterioration of competition and the deterioration of information. The deterioration of competition is a danger for capitalism, that is to say the system in which any bearer of an innovative project will be able to mobilize the capital necessary for the creation of his company, and for its political corollary, democracy liberal.
The virtues of capitalism are free enterprise, freedom of consumer choice and, when competition is guaranteed, a sharing of the surplus favorable to the latter. Any deterioration in competition gives rise to dominant positions and undue rents. In addition to generating economic sub-optimality, it widens inequalities between citizens.
In the first half of this year, the European Union took historic measures to preserve competition through the Digital Market Act (DMA), a legislative package intended to regulate the activity of Gafam – Google, Apple, Meta (Facebook ), Amazon and Microsoft – and strengthen consumers’ freedom of choice. A second set of measures has been decided to replace the European directive on e-commerce: this is the Digital Services Act (DSA).
A fundamental problem
This time, it is a question of more specifically regulating social networks. The European Union forces platforms to remove content that violates European and national regulations. Facebook and Twitter will have to be more transparent about their content moderation policy, but also about their recommendation algorithms.
The question of how these algorithms work might seem cosmetic. It is, in fact, a fundamental problem for the quality of information to which users are exposed.
In order to increase traffic on their platforms (which allows them to collect the digital gold of personal data), social networks rely on recommendation algorithms that confirm users in their convictions: it is , indeed, the surest way to build consumer loyalty. Exposure to conflicting opinions or more nuanced information does not bring consumer satisfaction.
Intervene on the technological keystone of the activity
Conversely, exposure to content that is more radical or outrageous than one’s own generates a form of pleasure and helps to uninhibit the Internet user: “There are contributors who are more radical than me, so I’m more of a moderate. » It is a powerful driver of citizen radicalization, verbal abuse on social media and, by extension, the worrying rise in physical violence in street protests.
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