Elon Musk took it for his rank. Delphine Ernotte, the boss of France Television, has risen once again against the report to the media of the social network Twitter since its takeover by the American billionaire. For several weeks, Twitter had indeed applied to the accounts of major media controversial mentions such as “media affiliated with the State” and “media financed by government funds”, before removing them on Friday in the face of the international protest movement. It is “frightening” that billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the social network Twitter, claims to “determine whether a media is independent or if it is not”, Delphine Ernotte took offense in an interview with the newspaper Les Échos. . “To see an American billionaire trying to play with our independence and define our public space is frightening,” continued the president of the public group.
In recent weeks, Twitter had branded mainstream media accounts with controversial labels, “state-affiliated media” and “government-funded media,” before removing them on Friday. “Twitter has retreated because the collective mobilization of public media, from Canada to Australia, has paid off,” commented Delphine Ernotte. “But this raises the question of the control of our information space. We cannot let American actors, tomorrow Chinese, play sorcerer’s apprentices with our democracies, ”she continued.
In mid-April, the American public radio NPR left Twitter, unhappy with the mention “media affiliated with the American state”, which put it on the same level as Russian organs like Russia Today (RT) or the official Chinese agency Xinhua (New China). Could France Télévisions and its channels leave the social network? “It’s a dilemma,” replied Delphine Ernotte. “The possibilities opened up by artificial intelligence to generate, at an industrial pace, fake images and videos are dizzying. In the shambles that is coming, our national media, regulated, are compasses, ”she argued. In addition, for the boss of France Television, social networks are no longer the public square where everyone’s voices were exposed uniformly. “Tomorrow, those who have paid will see their content highlighted, the others will be lost in the algorithms. The liberation of public debate brought about by social networks at their creation ultimately turns into a purely commercial logic. And this “battle” of “visibility” will be lost “if discrimination is done only by money”, observed Delphine Ernotte bitterly.
