As the presidential campaign has entered its final phase, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are now preparing for the debate between two rounds which will oppose them on April 20, four days before the vote.

At the same time, on social networks, the two camps are waging a merciless war to unite their electorate and attract as much support as possible.  

A digital campaign closely scrutinized by the American organization Reset Tech, a specialist in online behavior, which points the finger, in a new study to be published, at the excesses of far-right supporters as well as platforms which "favor their content" .

France 24 spoke with one of its authors, Théophile Lenoir, also a researcher at the liberal think tank Institut Montaigne. 

Your study measures the "toxicity" of messages linked to political parties. Can you explain to us what criteria it was conducted on and what are the results?   

Théophile Lenoir:

 we conducted this study ahead of the campaign, from January 2020 to October 2021, to analyze where the insulting and hateful messages came from on the political spectrum.

We identified 50 representative accounts per party and analyzed all of their posts and comments.

These are official accounts of political parties, accounts associated with them as well as people claiming to be from these parties.  

This clearly shows that far-right supporters are by far the most violent on the networks.

On Facebook, pages associated with the Rassemblement national represent 45.1% of highly toxic posts, i.e. containing serious insults, threats and/or hate speech, whereas they constitute only 12.3% of the total messages analyzed.

We also found that a significant portion of hate posts came from accounts claiming to be Yellow Vests (5.97% of the most toxic content, but only 2.52% of all posts).  

Finally, with regard to the comments, it appears that the people most radically committed to the extremes are also the most active.

49.5% of the comments we analyzed on Facebook come from accounts linked to the far right, 17.03% are linked to insubordinate France, while 14.97% come from accounts close to La République en Marche. 

You point the finger at the responsibility of platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, in what way are they responsible?

There is clearly a responsibility on the platforms for highlighting hateful comments.

Because the social network system favors accounts and posts that generate the most comments.

Very often, the more extreme the remarks, and stir up emotions, the more reactions they provoke.

Moreover, the fact that these "extreme" profiles comment a lot promotes their exposure.

They are sort of good clients for the platforms. 

This is not a deliberate choice on the part of the tech giants to favor the extremes, but rather a drift in a system that must be corrected.

Today, the barometer for promotion on social networks is engagement, the number of likes, the number of comments and the speed of reaction.

The tech giants must better understand the risk of using this type of indicator on the quality of democratic debate, put in place measures to combat its perverse effects and finally assess the effectiveness of these measures.

Platforms must be more transparent and must be subject to greater regulation and supervision by the public authorities.  

>> To read also: Presidential, what manipulations on social networks?

Have you noticed any major changes in the use of networks during the 2022 presidential campaign?

Are there any notable differences with the 2017 election? 

This campaign unfolded in a surprising way because it was largely overshadowed by two major events, the health crisis and the war in Ukraine.

This significant ignition delay was reflected on social networks, where it took a long time for presidential debates to make their mark.  

In addition, the Yellow Vests crisis has been there and continues to impact the debate.

The anti-system narrative that they embodied continues according to events, such as during the debate on the vaccination pass or today about the war in Ukraine, with an opposition to the political position and the media treatment that sometimes takes the form of a pro-Russian speech.

As for the campaign, we could cite the numerous posts on the contestation of the polls or the calls to verify the official count of the votes, relayed in particular by supporters of the extreme right.

It is too early to analyze the impact of social networks on the campaign since the election is not over, but what is certain is that "fact checking" is now much better organized and has become widespread within mainstream media to combat misinformation.    

Finally, the example of the Zemmour campaign, very focused on social networks and which ultimately disappointed at the polls, is also an interesting event.

In a way, it embodies the limits of these filter bubbles, put in place to encourage ever more interaction and which can give the impression of an illusory rise in power.  

>> To read also: The very small "Reconquest" of Éric Zemmour

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