The rise to power of the meta-barons in the U.S. has provoked all kinds of reactions, including a migration to a social network full of promise in protest at the new MAGA approach of the GAFAMS tycoons. That we’re still on what used to be Twitter isn’t too justifiable, given the radical transformation initiated in 2022, but Facebook, despite its censorship of Canadian media, has still retained a certain importance for millions of Canadians.
From day one, Facebook has been an imperfect product. In exchange for our lives/data, we get a social network that has become so important that an alternative, even a superior one, will never have the same buy-in.
The advent of the king of trolls has revealed that surprise, surprise, Zuckerberg loves money. And to make more of it, good intentions be damned. Not a huge revelation, but now we’re looking to at least try to resist, to protest, to be taken into consideration.
We vote with our feet. We let go. For the ex-Twitter, the bonze is a Nazi and uses his platform to troll the planet. It’s even insulting that our governments still use this platform to talk to us. What does it take for them to find something else? Make fax great again, like. But Facebook? Okay, the billionaire upstairs is a classless douchbag who would never be my friend. But to date, as far as we know, he’s not a Nazi and I’ve never seen a post from him or even a comment, I don’t follow him and unlike X, they don’t force his prose on us.
Because, for the moment, unlike X, when you do a bit of housekeeping, you see a lot of what you want on Facebook, except what they censor. The suggestions/advertisements and so on that abound are often related to things you’re already following. And unless you have a penchant for the wacko world, you don’t see too much of that content, depending on your friends. You’ll see music, film, and culture clips if that’s what you’re into, or doomsday preppers if that’s what you’re into. It takes time, and despite all the crap that sneaks in, it ends up being an environment you can relate to. The yin and yang of algorithms, sometimes it falls on the right side.
Quebec’s cultural particularity means that the network built on Facebook is pretty much the only thing we’ve got left. It’s the only thing that lets us talk to each other. Still.
Other media complement it, and banning them is the worst thing that could happen to this network. Not that Zucko doesn’t still want to censor wackos. Or that he’s going to kneel before the king of trolls. It’s about hammering the final nails into the coffins of those media outlets with the terminal cancer of… Facebook. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
It’s been over a year and there’s nothing to give any semblance of hope. The media that are still holding out are getting weaker and we know what’s coming. But what do we do in the meantime? Disperse and then what? Who does that serve? Divide and conquer, as they used to say.
The reasons for leaving are legitimate, but we’re losing important voices in a debate we need to have if a certain idea of Quebec is to continue to exist. We’re severing the link between those who give us our identity, the artists, and an audience that would otherwise be impossible to reach, and who also have other things to do than rebuild a network that will never be what they already have.
Do we give way to junk dealers and watch the ship sink while fiddling on a melting ice floe …? Or talk into the void until we tire of that too …? No. I want to see your photos on the beach in the Philippines, the show you went to see, and what you thought of the film you saw. I want to know what’s going on at night, even though I’ve got the FOMO and will probably spend part of my evening doomscrolling and thinking I should have. Knowing who’s been on “Tout le monde en parle” even if I never listen to it. Knowing who won the field hockey game even though I don’t give a shit. You know, knowing what my friends are going through, what they love, what they hate.
If tomorrow morning, everything ends up somewhere other than on a mega-millionaire platform, go. I have zero attachment other than practical for this thing and the bro riches can suck my left big toe. But it’s not true that I’m going to let them win without putting up a fight. Because their empires don’t exist if there’s nothing in them, and in the end, it’s all ours.
This is no time to shut up or run away, on the contrary. Everything is so intertwined that there’s no escaping it. Even if the sky seems bluer elsewhere, it’s still at the mercy of a rich man who loves money more than being able to breathe. We no longer dream of something that belongs to us, but of still having our place. To stay alive.
Don’t go, we need you.
