In a message for World Communications Day on Friday, Pope Francis criticised effective social networks for creating “fanaticism and yet hatred.” He also criticized an age of “disinformation and polarization” in a city in VATICAN CITY.
In saluting editors, he spoke of their social responsibility working “in these our days, characterised by propaganda and polarisation, as a few areas of power command an extraordinary density of data and information”.
The 88-year-old pontiff, who has warned in the past of the consequences of new technologies, including social media and artificial intelligence, did not identify Facebook or X by name, but his goal was visible.
” To usually today, communication generates no hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and hatred, fervor and even contempt”, the bishop wrote in his information.
It uses terms like a knife, fake or artistically distorted information to send messages intended to aggravate, inspire, or hurt, and all too frequently it simplifies fact in order to inspire instinctive reactions.
The priest’s warning comes as Elon Musk‘s company X is accused of spreading false information while interfering with German elections, particularly by attacking German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The businessman even assisted Donald Trump in becoming president by using his wealth and platform.
Meta has also been criticized for its CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statement this month that Facebook had discontinue its third-party fact-checking program in the US, which critics warned do add to the spread of false information online.
In a statement quoting Martin Luther King Jr., Francis claimed that he had dreamed of” contact that does not promote hallucinations or concerns but is able to provide reasons for hope.”
He warned, however, of systems that pull social media users information that is particularly catered to their interests and biases.
For “digital systems… by stereotyping us according to the reasoning of the market, adjust our understanding of reality”, he said.
” As a result, we see, usually helplessly, a sort of atomisation of interests that ends up undermining the foundations of our life as a group, our ability to join in the pursuit of the common good, to talk to one another and to know each other’s point of view”.
Earlier this month, in his New Year’s address to Vatican diplomats, Francis lamented increasing polarisation in society, “aggravated by the continuous creation and spread of fake news”.
Unfounded rumors and fabricated images are frequently spread online by Francis himself.
