I have made the decision to leave Twitter.
Far from being the revolutionary medium that initially made information accessible to the largest number of people, Twitter has, in recent years, become a powerful tool for destroying our democracies.
Be it manipulation, misinformation, hate-mongering, harassment, anti-Semitism and outright racism, or vicious attacks on scientists, climate scientists, women, environmentalists, progressives and anyone of good will who desires peaceful political debate In an increasingly complex world, the catalog of abuses is endless. Not to mention the daily external interference in electoral processes aimed at destabilizing our democracies and undermining their image and sovereignty.
Today, controversy, rumors and gross manipulation dominate public debate, fueled by Twitter’s algorithm, where the only thing that counts is the number of likes. The truth hardly counts.
This platform and its operator deliberately exacerbate tensions and conflicts.
Furthermore, it deliberately prevents the transmission of the essential information to implement the ecological and energy transformation we so urgently need, in favor of the arguments of climate skeptics who are guided only by their interest in fossil fuels and a limitless greed for the planet. We can continue to deny, clarify and explain, but the noise created by fake news will have a greater impact than a proven truth.
Let’s not fool ourselves. We are faced with a very clear political project that aims to degrade democracy and its values in favor of powerful private interests.
The latest content control transparency report published by Twitter itself places France first in Europe for violent and illegal content.
This medium has become a gigantic global sewer, and should we continue to delve into it?
We see it every day: Twitter prevents debate, the desire for truth, and the calm and constructive dialogue that people need. With its thousands of anonymous accounts and troll farms, life on Twitter is at odds with democratic life.
I refuse to support this evil plan.
I firmly believe in democracy, which is still being built.
I believe in dialogue in these difficult times.
We should never accept harassment based on malicious attacks.
We must not allow the “engineers of chaos” to take control of our destiny.
We should not accept the daily decay of our democracies through our screens.
In March 2009, I was one of the first French politicians to join this network and today I have a community of one and a half million followers around the world.
To stay true to my beliefs and commitment, I left Twitter today.
I will remain on other social networks where respectful dialogue is still possible. More than ever, we need to keep authentic democracy alive, whether through town halls, community meetings, referendums, conferences or assemblies. They are places where people see each other, discuss things, build things together and simply live together.
When everything is dark, we must look for the light and the great leaders who have shown us the way at certain moments in our history. “We must learn to live together as brothers, otherwise we will die together like idiots,” Martin Luther King told us in the early 1960s.
We can trust each other and find the way back to democracy, peace and brotherhood. It just depends on us.
Anne Hidalgo She is mayor of Paris.
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